alt Hacker NewsSeems generally like a good thing? I know the biggest difference I can think of in my lifetime is just how much better insulated houses are. Not on a par with Scandinavia, but still massively improved from even the peak electricity consumption period in the charts of 2005. I wonder how much that contributes to the overall reduction in demand.
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Only 9% of the UK is electric only heating [1], so I suspect heating is not a large driver here.
[1] https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/...
No it's a catastrophic failure of planning and institutional nerve.
Just an observation, but my first thought was how energy demand strongly correlates with economic growth and wondered if the article could be cast in that light. Might be fun to overlay that graph with UK gilt rates
edit: helpful robot boyfriend plotted it https://i.imgur.com/Hp199vV.png
jevon's paradox says that improved efficiencies would increase consumption
I see a lot of comments here see "per capita" and think "residential consumption" - but the decrease is more indicating of general deindustrialization
It can be good or bad depending on what's driving the change. Improving efficiency, assuming it comes at a reasonable cost, is generally good.
If people are just going without, then that's generally bad.