Thanks to Germany’s energy saving campaign of 2022, reserves for next winter are already on the way to filling up and German households are using much less gas on average than in previous years.

Germans are using less energy at home

Germany's determination to save energy amid shortages is now further quantifiable. In comparison to the previous year, households in Germany are using 12 percent less electricity and 21 percent less gas, according to the price comparison website Check24.

“Due to the sharp rise in gas prices over the past year customers were particularly frugal,” said the head of Check24, Steffen Suttner. In 2022 the average German household used just under 15.400 kilowatt hours of energy for utilities - in 2021 the same figure was around 4.000 kilowatt-hours higher. The news of decreased average energy usage comes just as another comparison website, Verivox, announced that energy prices in Germany have fallen for the first time in two years.

Berliners used the fewest kilowatt-hours in 2022

While the average comes in at around 15.400 kilowatt-hours per household, usage differs considerably between German cities and across federal states. Inhabitants of Germany’s three city states - Berlin, Hamburg and Bremen - used the least energy to power their houses, which are comparatively smaller than dwellings elsewhere in the federal republic. In the capital, the average house used just 11.000 kilowatt-hours in 2022.

Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg all came in around the middle, using somewhere between 15.00 and 17.000 kilowatt-hours in 2022. On the other end of the scale was Saxony, where the average was almost 19.600 kilowatt-hours per household in 2022.

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