Energy savings
Energy efficiency improvements reduce the amount of energy use required to provide a service. Energy savings are at the heart of the multiple benefits of energy efficiency and link to many other economic, social and environmental benefits.
Energy efficiency reduces energy use worldwide
Globally, energy efficiency improved by an estimated 13% between 2000 and 2017. Without this improvement, global energy use in 2017 would have been 12% higher – equivalent to adding the annual final energy use of the European Union to the global energy market (Figure 1). In the world’s major economies, the majority of these savings were obtained in the industry and buildings sectors.
Actual Without energy efficiency GDP 2000 100 100 100 2001 100.4996395 100.8323348 102.3798011 2002 101.9881507 102.8352067 105.3428466 2003 105.0629168 106.428762 109.625601 2004 109.6552556 111.4468825 115.3548141 2005 113.170989 114.9773594 120.8470414 2006 115.8925029 120.1475336 127.2599593 2007 119.1946641 125.2316421 134.1268484 2008 121.0425425 128.4562303 137.9861216 2009 119.6444134 126.877124 137.3650489 2010 125.8768522 132.7659428 144.5926035 2011 127.8104021 135.9815191 150.5297701 2012 129.0402082 138.2190191 155.4899051 2013 131.6555882 141.7971036 160.7214955 2014 132.480508 143.8646807 166.3138612 2015 133.8102898 146.5703274 171.8429952 2016 135.6131516 150.1748713 177.2039716 2017 137.9878634 153.8661794 183.7214644
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Industry Transport Buildings 2000 0.0 0.0 0.0 2001 -0.2 0.3 0.6 2002 0.5 0.6 1.2 2003 1.0 0.4 1.8 2004 0.8 0.6 2.5 2005 -0.7 1.3 3.0 2006 3.7 1.8 4.0 2007 7.4 1.6 4.8 2008 9.5 2.0 5.6 2009 7.2 2.5 6.6 2010 4.6 3.1 7.5 2011 6.4 3.6 8.4 2012 7.2 3.8 9.4 2013 8.2 4.3 10.2 2014 10.6 4.0 10.9 2015 13.1 3.8 12.0 2016 15.8 4.4 13.1 2017 18.5 4.2 13.9
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Notes: Major economies are IEA countries plus China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russian Federation, South Africa and Argentina. Global energy savings are a combination of improvements in major economies, plus the rest of the world, which represents 25% of global energy use. Energy savings for the rest of the world are estimated by applying the ratio of efficiency improvements to intensity gains observed in emerging economies to the gains in intensity observed in these other countries.
Energy efficiency reduces the need for additional primary energy
The estimated amount of primary energy saved in major economies in 2017 as a result of efficiency gains since 2000 was over 50 EJ. Of these primary energy savings, around 40% came from reduced fuel input to power generation due to reductions in electricity demand. Coal is the largest source of global primary energy savings, as a result of efficiency gains in China. These coal savings are equivalent to over 10% of global coal demand. Natural gas savings were also around 10% of global demand.
Figure 2. Avoided energy use in 2017 from efficiency improvements since 2000, by fuel 2000-17[2]
Note: Major economies are IEA countries plus China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Russian Federation, South Africa and Argentina. Primary energy savings from power generation are determined based on the generation mix within the countries analysed.