The growth in residential energy use has slowed to below the rate of household growth, meaning that per-household energy consumption has decreased. Analysis of EIA’s Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) conducted since 1980 shows how improvements in energy efficiency reduced energy intensity enough to offset more than 70% of the growth in both the number of households and the size of dwellings. Between 1980 and 2009 (the most recent survey year), delivered energy used by U.S. households increased from 9.3 quadrillion British thermal units (quads) to 10.2 quads, an average growth of 0.3% per year. The change in delivered energy during this period can be broken into component factors, including number of households, structural changes (the mix of housing types, the geographic distribution of households, and changes in average floor area), weather, and energy intensity (measured here as consumption […]