Early in the 20th century, electrification was viewed as the process of making electric power network services more readily available to both residential and industrial consumers; today it is largely about increasing the proportion of electric power in sectoral primary energy demand balances. An illustrative case of electrification progress is the EU transport sector where energy demand totaled 11.7 mln Tj in 2022, of which electricity accounted for only 2% (229 thou. Tj), the remaining 98% (11.5 mln Tj) distributed among all the other sources including natural gas and petroleum products.
As a result, the 2022 EU transport electrification rate stood at a mere 2%. To compare, the share of electricity in primary energy consumption amounted to 25% in the residential sector, 33% in manufacturing industry, 50% in the commerce and services sector, and 32% in all other sectors combined. In 2022 the EU economy-wide electrification ratio was 23%, and the figure is expected to grow in the years to come – due to widespread electrical vehicle use as well as commercial sector electrification, which is also taking place in non-EU OECD countries including the United States.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates the size of the US commercial property sector at 5.9 mln buildings, of which 4.6 mln rely exclusively on electric power to run air conditioning and slightly over 2 mln, to run hot water supply systems. In addition, slightly over 1.5 mln commercial buildings use electricity as the sole energy source for heating and under 1 mln, for cooking. As more electric power is used for the above purposes over the next few years, it will have an increasingly strong impact on the US primary energy demand structure.
