Energy intensity, which measures the energy inefficiency of an economy, in the U.S. is projected to continue its decline through 2050, according to the country's Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday.
The U.S.' energy consumption is expected to grow more slowly than the country's gross domestic product (GDP) through 2050, the EIA said in a statement.
Energy intensity is a measure of how efficiently the economy uses energy to produce every dollar of GDP. While high-energy intensities indicate a high price or cost of converting energy into GDP, low-energy intensity shows a lower price or cost of converting energy into economic growth.
'Total U.S. energy consumption increases at an average annual rate of 0.3% between 2019 and 2050, and GDP grows at an annual rate of 1.9%, which indicates a 1.5% average annual decline in energy intensity during the projection period,' the EIA said in its statement.
'By 2050, the domestic energy consumption associated with each dollar of U.S. economic growth is less than half of what it was in 2005,' it added.
Although growth of energy consumption in developed economies such as the U.S. is closely tied to growth in GDP, the EIA said this is partially offset by improvements in energy efficiency and other changes in the economy that result in lower energy use per unit of economic output.
In the U.S., the industrial sector consumes more energy than any other sector in the country, and its energy use grows faster than any other sector at an average annual rate of 0.8% through 2050, according to the EIA.
In the country's transportation sector, energy consumption is estimated to decline by an average of 0.2% annually between 2019 and 2050.
For the U.S.' residential energy, consumption growth is forecast to remain flat between 2019 and 2050, while consumption in commercial energy is expected to grow by an average of 0.3% annually between those years.
By Ovunc Kutlu
Anadolu Agency
energy@aa.com.tr