Electricity usage by sector in the US
In the last couple posts, we learned that the electric sector accounts for about 1.5% of the GDP of the US, albeit underpinning uses across the entire economy. The relative share was higher for growing economies like India (about 3.7% of the GDP) which has smaller services and luxury goods sector. In this post, we will review which sectors use how much electricity in the US and identify the ones with high electricity usage.
This graphic from EPA summarizes electricity usage at the highest level. The residential sector has the highest share at 37%, followed by commercial and industrial. Transportation is a small but growing sector — with recent executive order by Biden aiming for half of all new vehicles sold in 2030 to be electric.
HVAC, lighting, and water heating loads are likely not to show a high variance among different residential and commercial users. HVAC contributes to 26% (mostly air-conditioning, but increasingly electric heat pumps are replacing gas furnaces for space heating), and lighting contributes a greater share (20%) in commercial buildings compared to residential buildings (12%). Water heating loads, in contrast, are higher in residential buildings (10%) compared to commercial buildings, due to end uses like cooking and showering. The appliances and electronics that increasingly power our businesses and keep us entertained make a sizable share of the power usage as well.
The industrial sector is the largest energy end-use sector consuming 36% of all primary energy consumption (EIA). However, electricity is only a small share of industrial energy use. While most industries purchase electricity from electric utilities or independent power producers, some facilities also self-generate electricity. For example, many paper mills have combined heat and power (CHP) plants that may burn purchased natural gas or coal and black liquor produced in their mills for process heat and to generate electricity.
The industrial sector uses electricity for operating industrial motors and machinery, lights, computers and office equipment, and equipment for facility heating, cooling, and ventilation.
Within the industrial sector, manufacturing accounts for the largest share of annual industrial energy (note: energy not electricity), followed by mining, construction, and agriculture per EIA. Manufacturing is the physical, mechanical, or chemical transformation of materials or substances into new products.
Six energy-intensive manufacturing industries make up for about 87% of total manufacturing energy consumption: chemicals, petroleum and coal products, paper, primary metals (facilities that produce metal products from metal ore and / or scrap metal), food, and non-metallic minerals (like quartz, gypsum, gem stones, asphalt, bitumen, etc.)
