Low-energy appliances increasingly popular

Dutch households are using more and more low-energy appliances. Over half of households heated their homes with a high efficiency boiler (HE boiler) in 2004. Six out of ten households use low-energy light bulbs and three-quarters try to save energy by switching off lights more.

Heating homes, 2004

HE boilers more popular

Fifty-two 52 percent of Dutch households had an HE boiler in 2004, up from 42 percent in 1999. People who own their homes are more likely to have an HE boiler (62 percent) than those who rent their dwellings (37 percent), and family houses (62 percent) are more likely to have one than other types of dwelling such as flats, etc. (31 percent). HE boilers are more popular in smaller municipalities than in strongly urbanised areas.

Standard efficiency boilers (SE boilers) are less popular than HE boilers. About 14 percent of households heat their home with an SE boiler. This percentage has remained stable in recent years. SE boilers are more common in big cities than in rural municipalities. Home-owners are just as likely as tenants to have a SE boiler.

About one in three households do not use an HE or SE boiler, but another appliance to heat their homes, for example a conventional boiler, a gas fire, or solar panels, or they are connected to a district heating system.

Households with an HE boiler

Low-energy light bulbs used more

Sixty-two percent of households used low-energy light bulbs in 2004. In 1999 this was 56 percent.Low-energy light bulbs are used more by older than by younger people. They are also more likely to be used by people with a higher than with a lower income. More than three-quarters of households try to save energy by switching off lights more often. Three quarters of households also try to save water by turning the tap on less often and/or letting it run for a shorter time. This proportion has decreased in recent years, however.

Henk Swinkels