Households' energy consumption grows in 2016

The final consumption of energy products by Finns in Finland and abroad grew by five per cent from the previous year to 1.2 million terajoules in 2016, according to Statistics Finland.

The growth was biggest for households that consumed seven per cent more energy than in the year before.

Households consumed 300 thousand terajoules of energy, which corresponds to one quarter of final energy consumption.

In the industry of transportation and storage, energy consumption grew by six per cent, being 146 thousand terajoules.

The final consumption of energy products in manufacturing went up by three per cent. The share of manufacturing in total final energy consumption stood at 44 per cent.

The consumption of oil products grew by five per cent from the previous year to 537 thousand terajoules. The main reason for the growth was the fall in the share of biofuels in transport fuels, which increased the consumption of fossil transport fuels. This was particularly visible in the industry of land transport, where the consumption of oil products grew by 22 per cent compared with the previous year. The volume of oil products consumed by households also grew by six per cent from the previous year. The consumption of crude oil went up by 15 per cent from the year before.

In turn, the consumption of biofuels went down by two per cent from the year before, which was visible as the fall in processing use in manufacturing and the decrease in final consumption especially in land transport. The consumption of biofuels in land transport went down by 75 per cent from the year before. However, the consumption of biofuels grew for households by five per cent from the previous year, which was primarily due to increased wood combustion in heating of buildings. The consumption of wood fuels in energy supply also increased, which was visible as a four per cent growth in the consumption of biofuels in the industry.

Six per cent more electricity and heat were used than in the previous year. The growth was biggest for households that used electricity and heat eight per cent more than in the previous year. Households consumed nearly one-third of all electricity and heat. Manufacturing consumed four per cent more electricity and heat than one year earlier.

Energy accounts are part of the second stage of the European Union’s Regulation concerning environmental accounts that became legally valid in June 2014 ((EC) No 538/2014). The Regulation obliges the Member States to compile statistics and report annually on energy accounts.