Energy use in private households
Over a fourth of the energy we use occurs in private households. Thus, this sector offers many different approaches for savings and, above all, for an efficient use of energy. To do this, however, one has to know how the energy is exactly distributed.
We expend 71.3 percent of our energy to heat our rooms, 12.0 percent to heat water, 5.3 percent for other process heat, 9.6 percent for mechanical energy and, finally, 1.8 percent for illumination.
A lot of energy we expend is lost in heating our water alone. If this energy is recovered through heat exchangers and pumps suitably, it can then be employed to heat or cool our rooms and, thus, sink consumption sensibly.
Fewer and fewer people live in one household. Correspondingly, the number of households and thus energy consumption is rising. In 2008 there were around 39.1 households, which is nearly 4 million or 11 percent more than in 1990. This increase alone means, with respect to the total consumption in Germany, an increase in energy consumption of 2 percent annually.
