which date the process will be accelerated to 200 000 homes a year (HollandTimes, 2018). The United Kingdom is currently considering banning gas boilers in new buildings after 2025.14 Across the European Union the share of renewables and biofuels in residential energy consumption grew from 14% in 2007 to 17% in 2017 (Eurostat, 2019b). There is, however, some upside potential for gas in countries where fuel oil is still present in the residential and commercial sectors and hence can be replaced by cleaner heating fuels such as natural gas (including, amongst others, Spain and Turkey).

Figure 1.27. Quarterly change in residential and commercial gas demand in key European countries, 2017–18

Gas consumption in the residential and commercial sector slightly decreased in 2018, as higher demand in a particularly cold first quarter was balanced by lower needs through the rest of the year.

Industry

European natural gas demand from the industrial sector has remained stable over the past few years, increasing at a mere 0.5% per year between 2010 and 2017. This has been largely driven by Turkey, where demand has been rising at a rate of 7.4%. Half of this growth came from the chemicals and iron and steel subsectors. In contrast, natural gas consumption from the industrial sector has been stagnating in the European Union, with an average annual growth rate of 0.1% over the same period, as gas usage increased for chemicals but declined in subsectors such as iron and steel and machinery.

Preliminary data indicate that industrial gas demand decreased slightly in 2018 to a level of 130 bcm (against 131 bcm in 2017). In the European Union the production of chemicals decreased by 2%, mainly due to lower output of agrochemical products, plummeting by 6.4%. This is partly due to the unusual seasonal pattern of European gas prices in 2018, which increased during the summer when the production of agrochemicals is at its highest (for further discussion on gas prices, please refer to Chapter 4).