2/19/23, 7:31 PM A cross-country comparison of the building energy consumptions and their trends - ScienceDirect

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

Volume 123, August 2017, Pages 230-241

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A cross-country comparison of the building energy

consumptions and their trends
Umberto Berardi

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Abstract

Although it is often stated that the energy consumption in buildings accounts for more than
30% of total global final energy use, only a few studies analyze updated data about the
current building energy consumptions or focus on comparing different countries. Similarly,
models that predict future trends in building energy demand often use contrasting
algorithms which result in diverse forecasts. Scope of this paper is to present and discuss
data taken from several studies about the building energy consumptions in US, EU, and BRIC
(Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries and to provide an updated inventory of useful
figures. Comparisons among countries are used to show historical, actual, and future energy
consumption trends. Data presented by the World Bank, the United Nations Environment
Program, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the International Energy
Agency are compared with national reports as well as with research studies. The variety of
the approaches used in each of the previous sources was considered fundamental to allow a
complete review. The paper shows that the total building energy consumptions in BRIC
countries have already overcome those in developed countries, and the continuous increase
in the building stock of the BRIC countries creates an urgency for promoting building energy
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2/19/23, 7:31 PM A cross-country comparison of the building energy consumptions and their trends - ScienceDirect

efficiency policies in these countries. At the same time, the policies actually adopted in
developed countries are insufficient to guarantee a significant reduction in their building
energy consumption in the years to come. In the current scenario, at least a doubling of the
global energy demand in buildings compared to today’s levels will occur by 2050. To avoid
this forecast, cost-effective best practices and technologies as well as behavioral and
lifestyle changes need to be diffused and accepted globally.

Introduction

The awareness of the worldwide increased population together with the large
environmental impacts of current resource depredation, such as energy shortage, climate
change effects, and increasing GHG emissions, have raised concerns about the current
trends in energy consumption (Wan et al., 2012, Santamouris, 2016). British Petroleum has
indicated that the global demand for oil is expected to grow by 30% from 2007 to 2035,
while coal and natural gas consumption will increase by 50% (BP, 2010). Meanwhile, the
International Energy Agency predicts that unless radical changes in the current patterns are
taken, the energy-related emissions of CO2 will double by 2050 (IEA, 2014). This scenario
follows similar forecasts that other third-party models have predicted since mid ‘1990s
(Levine et al., 1996, Ürge-Vorsatz et al., 2007).

In the context of energy saving, the building sector has attracted increasingly attention
worldwide, as buildings are responsible for consuming up to 40% of the total energy in
some developed countries, with a related emission of 40% of total GHG emissions (IEA,
2013a, IEA, 2013b). According to the latest IPCC AR5 WGIII report, in 2010, buildings
accounted for 32% of total global final energy use (equal to 117 ExaJoules), 19% of energy-
related GHG emissions, 51% of global electricity consumption, 33% of black carbon
emissions, and an eighth to a third of F-gases emission (large differences in F-gases data are
due to differing accounting conventions) (IPCC, 2014). The IPCC stated that GHG emissions
from the building sector more than doubled between 1970 and 2010, reaching a value
around 10GtCO2eq/y nowadays (Fig. 1).

A closer look at Fig. 1 shows that most of GHG emissions (6.02 GtCO2eq/y in 2010) are
indirect emissions, and these are increasing at a much higher rate when compared to direct
emissions. Due to the high contribution of indirect GHG emissions from the building sector,
the environmental impacts of buildings vary according to the emission factors of the energy
production processes. Although it is not among the scopes of this paper to look at the
environmental implications of the building energy demand, it is still interesting to consider
the carbon footprint emission to understand the environmental implications in each

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2/19/23, 7:31 PM A cross-country comparison of the building energy consumptions and their trends - ScienceDirect

country. Fig. 2 shows the CO2eq emission in tonne of oil equivalent through the years, and it
helps relating the energy consumption with the corresponding environmental impact. It
emerges that the environmental consequences for a unit of energy is lower in countries
with a high rate of renewable energy production (for example, the hydroelectric in Brazil),
and higher in countries with extensive use of fossil sources (mainly carbon in China).
Moreover, this figure shows that the countries where a higher increase in the energy
consumption is occurring are those that adopt technologies with larger environmental
impacts.

Considering the complexity of energy networks and grids, and the high variability of the
real emission factors (Fig. 2), this paper will focus more on the final energy demands than
on their environmental implications.

The increasing building energy demand (Fig. 1) requires immediate actions to promote
radical changes in current trends (GhaffarianHoseini et al., 2013); in fact, the IPPC recently
stated that in contrast to the expected doubling or tripling in final energy compared to
today’s levels use in 2050, the global demand could stay constant if cost-effective best
practices and technologies will broadly diffuse immediately (IPCC, 2014).

Given distinct national conditions, such as economic grow, population trends, and climate
characteristics, different policies for energy saving in buildings have been proposed. An
international comparison showed that developed countries often have relatively mature
policies and coding systems, whereas developing countries have started looking at this topic
more recently (Berardi, 2013, Berardi, 2015). To have a better understanding of the
international trends in energy consumption and saving policies in buildings, this paper
compares data in selected countries: the United States (US), the European Union (EU), and
the BRIC (Brazil, Russia. India, China) countries. The reason for selecting these countries is
their overall share of the energy consumption; in fact, in 2010, these countries accounted
for more than 60% of global energy consumption (Fig. 3). China is the country with the
largest energy consumption worldwide, with a rate of 18% in 2010; the US and EU followed
behind, taking up 17% and 13% respectively in the same year; India, Russia, and Brazil are
third, fourth and eighth largest energy consumer countries in the world, with a
consumption of 6%, 5%, and 2% respectively (EIA, 2014). Fig. 3 also shows the significant
relative increase in energy consumption recorded in BRIC countries in the last two decades.
In particular, the total world energy use is expected to rise from 13.2 Gtoe in 2010–15.9 Gtoe
in 2020 and to 20.7 Gtoe in 2040 (Gigaton of oil equivalent, 1 Gtoe = 11.63 GWh), following
an energy consumption growth of 56% between 2010 and 2040; as a result, an increase in

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energy consumption above 90% can be observed in the non-OECD countries, and around
17% in the OECD countries (Allouhi et al., 2015).

While Fig. 3 refers to the total energy consumption, by breaking down this total demand by
sectors, it is possible to depict where energy is mainly consumed (Fig. 4). Although this
option should be easy, usually, the building sector does not exist as a unique sector in
energy statistics, as many agencies divide the final energy consumption into industry,
transport and “other”, with this last term incorporating buildings together with agriculture
and forestry. Obviously, buildings are responsible for most of the energy consumption in the
category ‘other’, but the fuzziness in the categorization creates more uncertainty about the
data referred to buildings.

Fig. 4 shows that the increase in energy consumption in buildings in the last twenty years
has been modest in US and EU countries (EU, 2013, EIA, 2014). In fact, since 1990, there has
been a reduction of the energy consumption in the industrial sector of these countries, as a
consequence of the shift of their economy from the manufacturing to services. The situation
is largely different in BRIC countries, which have experienced a significant energy
consumption increase in every sector, included the building one (Fig. 4). For example, in
China the building energy consumption increased by almost 45% in two decades, from
30 × 1018 J in 1990 − 43 × 1018 J in 2010.

This paper aims to report historical, actual, and forecast data about the energy consumption
in the building sector. Most of the historic data that will be presented have been taken from
reports published by the World Bank, the United Nations Environment Program, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Energy Agency, and by the
different national reports or research studies. The forecasts have often been taken from the
US Energy Information Agency, while the description of the policies currently in place
related to energy efficiency in the building sector in different countries is based on research
reports.

This study aims to provide useful information about global building energy consumptions
and energy efficiency trends, and to support cross-country comparisons. The paper is
organized in the following way: next section focuses on the energy consumption in
buildings by looking at aggregated data; Section 3 investigates each country separately, and
describes current policies related to the building energy savings. Finally, concluding
remarks for ways to develop more useful information about building energy consumptions
are reported in Section 4.

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Section snippets

Aggregate data about energy consumptions

The possible approach to energy saving in buildings may be divided into new high-
performance buildings and retrofit actions on existing ones. Based on the demographic
trends and new construction rates, different scenarios exist in different countries. For
example, the US and EU with their replacement rate of new constructions between 2% and
3% respectively have few possibilities to reduce the energy consumption by promoting new
high-performance buildings only, and they have started to look at…

Strategies for energy saving in the different countries

This section reports historical data, current situations, and future trends of building energy
consumptions in each country analysed in this paper. Together with energy consumption
data, energy saving targets and policies are also discussed.…

Conclusions

The development of building energy saving targets represents a main concern if global
energy short cuts want to be avoided in the coming decades, especially considering the
challenges of climate changes. Developed countries have been devoted to energy saving
buildings for many years but often unsuccessfully; in fact, although valuable experiences in
energy efficiency in buildings are common, these examples have been so far unable to scale
up to the level of new construction standards. As…

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