I can't find any "average kwh for heating" numbers though. If the US number of roughly 10.000 kwh per year included heating, that could be roughly comparable to what the German average could be. Numbers that I find range from 14.000kwh for old homes with Gas usage to 3000kwh for modern homes with heat pumps.
Would make more sense than the US average being 4x while roughly using the same electronics.
Wow, that's terrible. Do Germans not have as good of climate control or something? I wonder what it would take to get German energy consumption up to a better level. It looks like wholesale electricity costs in Germany are around 4x higher than in the US.
>what it would take to get German energy consumption up to a better level
That's a good question. Prices are a good start. Consumer prices seem to be twice in G as in the US. Don't know where you get the "wholesale price is 4x in G". Most of what I can find is that wholesale is usually pretty close.
My guess of what G could do to increase consumption and thus moneys:
- Lower prices (duh). End user power is taxed heavily to subsidize industry power
- Remove mandatory energy labels on all electronics. Who really needs to know how much a TV or fridge is going to consume in power?
- Mandate "power-included" in rents. If you pay a fixed sum, you might as well leave the fridge open to cool the kitchen
- Mandate central heating and cooling. If you only pay a share of what you consume, might as well go full blast on everything
- stop subsidizing energy efficiency for new single and multi-tenant homes.
- stop building solid houses. Plywood walls are fine
And yet, america uses much more. Shouldn't that give you a pause? :)
Jokes aside, you're describing a correlation. America does not seem "more civilized" to me, you guys are just wasteful. Wasted energy does not lead to more civilization.