Use of electricity in houses to grow more quickly in developing economies

In our International Energy Outlook (IEO2021) Reference case, we project that residential buildings outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) will consume more electricity than all residential and commercial buildings combined in OECD countries by 2050. However, people in non-OECD countries will, on average, still consume less than half as much residential electricity as in OECD countries. Our Reference case assumes current laws and regulations do not change in the future, and we use it as the basis for examining alternative cases that change these base assumptions.