Being immersed in daily life in some lower income countries during my trips abroad has inspired me try to minimize my energy consumption. On this page, I have collected some statistics, the result of my efforts so far, and what I have learned along the way. I hope that I can inspire others to evaluate their own consumption and maybe reduce their footprint on our world a bit as well.
The scene for comparison:
Energy statistics are hard to compare globally, as the numbers to base a fair comparison on are hard to come by and calculated differently in so many different places.
According to Statistics Netherlands (CBS), the average dwelling in our country uses 1.280 m3 of natural gas and 2.810 kWh of electricity per year. This roughly equates to 15.000 kWh (1.280 * 9,8 + 2.810) per dwelling per year (using the Dutch conversion numbers from m3 gas to kWh equivalent). This share of electricity / gas is roughly comparable to the numbers that are published by the European Commission for the final energy consumption in the residential sector. So far so good.
Unfortunately, most global statistics are published in (converted) kWh units per capita (not per dwelling) and as such include all sorts of energy use per person per year. These numbers then include all (domestic) energy consumption, including household use like heating and cooking, but also transportation and as I assume services and for example work use and goods infrastructure. According to ourworldindata.org, the global average energy use per capita is 21.000 kWh, and one person in the Netherlands uses 55.000 kWh per year. This is almost 4 times as much as the average dwelling in the Netherlands, even though the average dwelling is home to more than one person! The Global energy and process emissions from buildings, including embodied emissions from new construction paint an even worse picture with direct and indirect residential energy use only accounting for 17% of the total... But it can never be stressed enough that comparing these local and global numbers is probably more sketchy than comparing apples to oranges (or apples to pears as we like to say in the Netherlands). I am just doing it to set the scene and to have at least some baseline to compare my own results to.
My energy consumption:
In my quest to effectively lower my energy footprint and become as independent from the grids as I can in the process, I have decided to focus my efforts on my own dwelling and behavior, as that is mostly within my own circle of influence and enough to chew on for the foreseeable future anyway.
As roughly pointed out above, I recognize that there is more to do, but one has to start somewhere.
My house, which is small and nowadays fairly well-isolated but still of around 1885 vintage, is of course not nearly as heat-proof as a state-of-the-art modern build. With a bit of effort (this is probably an understatement, see below for details), it turns out to be possible to bring the energy use down quite a bit:
I currently have a yearly electricity use of around 1.000 kWh and almost no gas use any more. Most of the heat is provided by (locally produced) solid fuel in the form of fire-wood. Converting volumes of naturally dried, chopped and stacked wood to kWh equivalents is even more dicey than some of the above. But I have to do it to make some sort of a comparison. Based on an estimated water content of 30% and the reasonable-looking conversion factors here, the 1.8 cubic meters of stacked wood that I burn yearly should provide me with around 3.600 kWh of heating energy (1m3 = 12,71/1,84=6,91Gj/m3, 6,91Gj/3,6Mj = 1919 kWh/m3), which I use for space heating and sometimes for cooking. This brings the total yearly energy use of my dwelling to 4.600 kWh equivalents, which comes in just under 1/3 of the Dutch average energy use per dwelling The conclusion of this analysis for my own energy use, is that I am certainly doing pretty good compared to the average in the Netherlands.
Comparing to the rest of the world is more difficult again because only per-capita total numbers are available. Assuming that the fraction residential / total energy use is identical all over the world (this is of course not true, since for example the number of people per household and heating and transportation use vary widely, as well as external service use, but we have to go with some number), the average global residential energy use would be around 5.500 kWh per year (21.000 kWh / 4). And for example 1.750 kWh for India and only 130 kWh for Malawi (all calculated based on data from ourworldindata.org). So: Comparing to the global average, it seems that I am still doing good with my 4.600 kWh per year, but I am certainly using much more than the average Indian or Malawian.
How I use as little as possible:
The short answer is: Analyzing energy use of every appliance, unplugging anything that is not in use, use only what is really 'needed' (what is really needed?) and not heating a whole house when using only a small space. And wearing something warm in winter.
Update October 2023:
At the start of 2023 I installed a solar PV installation with a capacity of 1300Wp and doubled that to 2600 Wp during the summer. As of October, I have needed to purchase only 300 kWh of electricity from the grid, and have backfed over 1000 kWh. With that, I seem to be well on track towards a negative yearly energy bill, with likely plenty of electricity surplus to provide most of the needed heating using a future heat-pump...
This page is a work in progress!