Electricity demand in the european service sector: A detailed bottom-up estimate by sector and by end-use

Knowledge about the electricity demand of the tertiary sector by end-use or by sub-sector is crucial to determine the Impact of novel technologies as well as to design effective energy efficiency policies. However, statistical information about electricity demand on a European level is only available for the tertiary sector as a whole. The present study aims to calculate and assess the current electricity demand of the tertiary sector in Europe for 29 countries, disaggregated by 8 sub-sectors and 13 (mostly building-related) end-uses such as lighting, electric heating, ventilation and cooling, heat pumps, refrigeration, and data centres with servers. A comparison of the results with Eurostat electricity demand statistics shows that the obtained bottom-up results are a good match with the statistical top-down data - with the exception of some smaller countries. The total demand of the tertiary sector for all countries is slightly underestimated by 2.5 %. The 7 most relevant countries in terms of electricity demand in the tertiary sector, which comprise France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the United Kingdom, are within a range of ±10 %. These results form a good data basis for forecasting the future electricity demand of the tertiary sector using a bottom-up modelling approach, as well as for ex-post estimations of energy efficiency policy impacts.