Building energy spans household and commercial demand, heating, cooling, appliances, fuels, floor area, emissions, and efficiency. The figures below distinguish global estimates, U.S. surveys, observed historical changes, and scenario forecasts so that unlike measures are not treated as interchangeable.
Key Building Energy Statistics
The following highlights summarize the most broadly useful figures:
- In 2024, buildings accounted for around 30% of global energy demand.
- From 2019 to 2024, buildings contributed around 20% of the growth in total global energy demand.
- In 2024, residential buildings represented about 70% of global building energy demand, while commercial and public buildings represented the remaining 30%.
- In 2018, the buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of global final energy use.
- In 2018, the buildings and construction sector accounted for 39% of global energy- and process-related CO2 emissions.
- From 2000 to 2017, global building floor area increased 65%.
- In 2018, the United States had an estimated 5.9 million commercial buildings.
- In 2018, U.S. commercial buildings contained about 96 billion square feet of floorspace.
- In 2018, U.S. commercial buildings used 6,787 trillion Btu of energy.
- In 2018, U.S. commercial buildings spent about $141 billion on energy.
- In 2020, 123.53 million primary occupied U.S. housing units were covered by the RECS survey.
- In 2020, U.S. homes consumed 9,481 trillion Btu of site energy.
- In 2020, space heating accounted for 4,026 trillion Btu of U.S. household site energy.
- From 2012 to 2018, U.S. commercial-building total energy use per square foot fell 12%.
- From 2012 to 2018, U.S. commercial-building electricity-use intensity fell 14%.
- In the IEA net-zero pathway, building space-heating energy consumption falls almost 70% by 2050.
- In that pathway, heated building floor area grows from 157 billion square metres in 2022 to 200 billion square metres in 2050.
- In the pathway baseline, heat pumps met 12% of building space-heating service demand in 2022, with a 55% target for 2050.
Contents
- Global building energy scale and sector shares
- U.S. commercial building energy data
- Residential building energy by end use
- Commercial energy sources and operating patterns
- Building energy trends, emissions, and efficiency
- Building energy forecasts and zero-carbon readiness
Global Building Energy Statistics: Scale and Sector Shares
The International Energy Agency estimates that buildings accounted for around 30% of global energy demand in 2024. Buildings also contributed around 20% of the growth in total global energy demand from 2019 to 2024; this is a share of growth, not a claim that buildings used 20% of all energy.
| Global measure | Period | Result |
|---|---|---|
| Buildings’ share of global energy demand | 2024 | Around 30% |
| Buildings’ contribution to growth in total energy demand | 2019–2024 | Around 20% |
| Residential share of building energy demand | 2024 | About 70% |
| Commercial and public share of building energy demand | 2024 | About 30% |
Source: Energy Efficiency 2025 — Buildings. These are IEA global estimates, and the accounting scope follows the report’s definition of buildings.
A wider sector boundary changes the result. In 2018, the buildings and construction sector accounted for 36% of global final energy use and 39% of global energy- and process-related CO2 emissions; that boundary includes construction and building materials.
- Manufacturing building materials and products contributed 11% of the buildings-and-construction sector’s 2018 emissions, including materials such as steel, cement, and glass.
- Global building floor area increased 65% from 2000 to 2017, a historical comparison rather than an annual growth rate.
- In advanced economies, space and water heating together accounted for about 70% of household energy use in the 2024 IEA report context.
Source: Perspectives for the Clean Energy Transition — The Critical Role of Buildings. The emissions and energy figures include embodied and process emissions where stated, so they should not be compared directly with operational building energy alone.
U.S. Commercial Building Energy Statistics by Stock and Floorspace
The 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) provides a statistically representative picture of in-scope U.S. commercial buildings. It estimated 5.9 million buildings containing about 96 billion square feet of floorspace, with 6,787 trillion Btu of site energy use and about $141 billion in nominal energy expenditures.
| U.S. commercial building measure | 2018 estimate |
|---|---|
| Buildings | 5.9 million |
| Floorspace | 96 billion square feet |
| Site energy use | 6,787 trillion Btu |
| Energy expenditures | About $141 billion |
| Average building size | 16.3 thousand square feet |
| Workers associated with surveyed buildings | 85.801 million |
Source: 2018 CBECS: Principal Building Activities and Users’ Guide to the 2018 CBECS Public Use Microdata File. CBECS floorspace includes enclosed areas such as basements and indoor parking, and the average is a mean rather than a median.
Building activity matters because stock, floorspace, and energy use are distributed differently. In 2018, warehouse/storage, office, and service buildings represented almost 48% of commercial buildings; warehouse/storage, office, and education buildings accounted for one-half of commercial floorspace; and office, mercantile, and education buildings accounted for 43% of commercial energy consumption.
Residential Building Energy Statistics by End Use
The 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey covered 123.53 million primary occupied housing units in the 50 states and District of Columbia. It excluded vacant, seasonal, second homes, military houses, and group quarters, so these results describe primary occupied homes rather than every U.S. dwelling.
U.S. primary occupied homes consumed 9,481 trillion Btu of site energy in 2020. The RECS total excludes biomass, coal, district steam, and solar thermal, while on-site solar photovoltaic electricity is included.
| Residential end use | 2020 site energy |
|---|---|
| Space heating | 4,026 trillion Btu |
| Water heating | 1,737 trillion Btu |
| Air conditioning | 866 trillion Btu |
| Refrigerators | 352 trillion Btu |
| All listed household site energy | 9,481 trillion Btu |
Source: Table CE3.1 Annual household site end-use consumption in the United States—totals and averages, 2020. These are RECS survey estimates; some end-use cells can be withheld when relative standard error or sample size is limiting.
Average total site energy use was 76.8 million Btu per U.S. household in 2020. Among households using the relevant end use, average space-heating site energy use was 34.4 million Btu and average water-heating site energy use was 14.1 million Btu.
RECS classified 5.79 million primary occupied U.S. homes as not using heating equipment in 2020. That classification does not mean those homes used zero total energy, and the table notes that some heating end-use cells had no sampled households.
Commercial Building Energy Sources and Operating Patterns
CBECS measured operating conditions and source classifications alongside energy totals. U.S. commercial buildings averaged 62 operating hours per week in 2018, while buildings with electric primary space heating averaged 64 hours and those with natural-gas primary space heating averaged 61 hours.
| Commercial source or measure | 2018 estimate |
|---|---|
| Electric primary space heating | 1.856 million buildings |
| Natural-gas primary space heating | 2.344 million buildings |
| Electricity supplying water heating | 2.785 million buildings |
| Natural gas supplying water heating | 1.885 million buildings |
| Electricity supplying cooking | 1.216 million buildings |
| Natural gas supplying cooking | 1.334 million buildings |
Source: Users’ Guide to the 2018 CBECS Public Use Microdata File. Water-heating counts can include more than one source, and cooking counts classify buildings rather than measuring cooking-energy consumption.
The average commercial building had 1,073 square feet per worker in 2018. Buildings with natural-gas primary heating averaged 21.4 thousand square feet, compared with 14.9 thousand square feet for buildings with electric primary heating; both are subset means, not medians.
Electricity and natural gas accounted for 94% of U.S. commercial-building energy consumption in 2018. CBECS end-use consumption tables use engineering models, imputation, and calibration, so end-use figures should be treated as estimates rather than direct meter observations.
Building Energy Trends, Emissions, and Efficiency Progress
U.S. commercial-building energy intensity improved between the 2012 and 2018 CBECS reference years. Total energy use per square foot was 12% lower in 2018 than in 2012, while electricity-use intensity decreased 14% and natural-gas-use intensity decreased 11%.
Source: 2018 CBECS Survey Data: Consumption and Expenditures and Use of energy in commercial buildings in depth. These are site-energy intensity comparisons defined by EIA, not measures of total primary energy or emissions.
Global progress is more complicated because growing floor area and electricity demand can offset efficiency gains. Indirect building emissions from electricity generation rose more than 35% globally between 2000 and 2017, while global building-sector emissions grew at an average 0.7% per year from 2015 onward despite falling energy intensity.
The IEA assessment says global building energy intensity needs to be at least 30% below 2018 levels to align with the sustainable-development ambitions described in that assessment. This is a required reduction, not an observed reduction.
In the European Union, annual buildings natural-gas demand, including indirect consumption, ranged from 150 to 210 billion cubic metres per year during 2010–2023. The 2022/23 heating season had 9% fewer heating degree days than the previous ten-year average, a weather indicator rather than a direct building-energy saving measure.
Source: Perspectives for the Clean Energy Transition — The Critical Role of Buildings and How much will renewables reduce gas consumption in European buildings?.
Building Energy Forecasts for Heating and Zero-Carbon Readiness
The IEA net-zero pathway is a scenario, not a record of observed adoption. It projects building space-heating energy consumption to fall almost 70% from 2022 to 2050 even as heated building floor area grows from 157 billion square metres to 200 billion square metres.
| IEA pathway measure | Baseline or 2022 | 2050 or target |
|---|---|---|
| Building space-heating energy consumption | — | Almost 70% lower than 2022 |
| Heated building floor area | 157 billion m² | 200 billion m² |
| Heat-pump capacity | 1,000 GW | 6,500 GW |
| Heat pumps’ share of space-heating service demand | 12% in 2022 | 55% in 2050 |
| Zero-carbon-ready new buildings and deep renovations | Less than 1% in 2022 | 100% by 2030 |
| Zero-carbon-ready existing building stock | Less than 5% in 2022 | 80% by 2050 |
Source: Space heating — Net Zero Emissions Guide. Capacity is not energy consumption, and space-heating service demand is not the same metric as delivered energy.
A Canada-specific IEA scenario shows how regional building-stock assumptions affect the outlook. Newer Canadian residential construction has average space-heating intensity around 75 kWh/m², versus 220 kWh/m² or more for buildings erected before 1960.
- Around 60% of Canada’s current residential floor area undergoes major energy renovation by 2050 in the scenario, with renovated residential buildings reaching about 100 kWh/m² average heating intensity.
- Around half of Canada’s existing non-residential floor area is renovated in the scenario by 2050.
- Average heating intensity of renovated Canadian non-residential buildings falls about 40% to 50% in most provinces by 2050.
- Average space-heating intensity of Canada’s building stock is about one-third lower in 2050 than in 2018 in the scenario.
Source: Heating and Cooling Strategies in the Clean Energy Transition. These are Canada-specific scenario projections, and the renovation results apply to the defined building groups rather than guaranteeing outcomes for every building.