Climate, prices, and renovation in EU household energy demand: end-use projections to 2050

Abstract

This paper estimates end-use demand elasticities for European Union residential energy consumption and applies them to projections of household energy demand up to 2030 and 2050. Using a 2013–2023 panel for the EU27, we estimate country fixed-effects demand equations with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors for total household energy and five Eurostat end-use categories: space heating, space cooling, water heating, cooking, and lighting and appliances. The explanatory variables are heating and cooling degree days, real household electricity and gas prices, and real GDP per capita. The estimated elasticities are applied to six scenarios that combine two climate trajectories with three energy-price pathways, calibrated to international policy scenarios. These pathways are price approximations of the corresponding IEA scenarios; technology, electrification, and fuel-mix transformations are not modeled. We also examine stylized RenovationWave sensitivities that impose reductions of 20%, 40%, and 60% in projected space-heating energy demand. The results show that EU27 residential energy demand is projected to fall by 2% to 12% by 2050 across the six scenarios, mainly because of reductions in heating demand, which dominate increases in cooling demand in absolute energy terms. Under the central scenario, total demand falls by 4.0%. Renovation sensitivities imply substantially larger reductions, ranging from 17% to 40%. The findings highlight the importance of building-envelope improvements, coolingrelated adaptation, and end-use heterogeneity in long-run residential energy-demand policy. The paper contributes a harmonized end-use projection framework that links climate exposure, household energy prices, income, and building-envelope efficiency within a single empirical model of EU residential energy demand.