Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework 2022
Source: environment.data.gov.uk (2025-08-21)

Non-domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED). The National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework was set up to provide a better understanding of energy use and intensity in domestic and non-domestic buildings.

These documents provide data on non-domestic energy use.

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The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework
2022 (England and Wales)
30 June 2022 Official Statistics
This report summarises analysis of the non-domestic building stock and non-domestic
building energy consumption in England and Wales using the latest version of the Non-
Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework (ND-NEED).
•
Total electricity consumption decreased by 8% in 2020 compared to 2019. The sectors
with the biggest decreases were Hospitality (34%), Arts, Community and Leisure (29%)
and Education (17%), reflecting the impact of the covid-19 pandemic.
•
Total gas consumption remained broadly the same in 2020 compared to 2019 (less than
1% decrease). It slightly increased or remained the same in five building uses and
decreased in five others, notably Hospitality (17%) and Arts, Community and Leisure
(12%). This followed a similar reduction in these two sectors in 2019 (of 17% and 13%
respectively), with the effect of the first two months of the covid-19 pandemic being seen
(the gas consumption year runs from mid-May to mid-May). Overall, gas consumption
fell by 3.6% between 2018 and 2020, with Hospitality falling by 32%.
•
Non-domestic building energy intensity varies by building use. The building uses with
the highest median electricity intensities are Hospitality (111 kWh/m2), Shops (84
kWh/m2) and Health (81 kWh/m2). The building uses with the highest median gas
intensities are Hospitality (242 kWh/m2), Shops (205 kWh/m2) and Emergency Services
(200 kWh/m2).
•
Non-domestic building energy consumption also varies by building use, but with a
different distribution to energy intensity. For electricity, the three highest consuming
building uses (excluding Other) are Factories (33%), Offices (15%) and Warehouses
(12%). For gas, the three highest consuming building uses (excluding Other) are
Factories (38%), Education (9%) and Offices (8%).
•
Non-domestic building total energy consumption varies by building size band. For both
electricity and gas, the combined consumption generally increases as building size band
increases. Buildings over 1,000m2 are responsible for 64% of electricity consumption
and 72% of gas consumption, despite making up just 6% of non-domestic buildings
(excluding buildings missing floor area information).
•
The highest 6% of electricity consumers are responsible for 80% of electricity
consumption, while the highest 4% of gas consumers are responsible for 80% of gas
consumption.
What you need to know about these statistics
The statistics in ND-NEED cover all non-domestic buildings in England and Wales,
under the ND-NEED definition. Information on the non-domestic building stock
reflects the position at the end of March 2022. Information on energy consumption
covers 2012 to 2020, and comprises electricity and gas consumed via the public
distribution system (onsite generated electricity consumption is not included).

Responsible statistician: James Hemingway Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
Email: xxx@xxx.xx Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx

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Figure 1: Summary graphic of the key ND-NEED 2022 results.
*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure

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Contents
Contents _______________________________________________________________ 3
1. Introduction ___________________________________________________________ 4
What questions cannot be answered by ND-NEED 2022? _______________________ 5
2. Results ______________________________________________________________ 6
England and Wales non-domestic building stock _______________________________ 6
Non-domestic buildings by building use ____________________________________ 7
Non-domestic buildings by year of construction _____________________________ 11
Non-domestic buildings by business size __________________________________ 14
England and Wales non-domestic building energy consumption/intensity ___________ 15
Non-domestic energy consumption by building use __________________________ 16
Non-domestic energy intensity by building use _____________________________ 25
Non-domestic energy consumption by building size _________________________ 28
Non-domestic energy intensity by building size _____________________________ 30
Non-domestic energy consumption by business size _________________________ 31
Non-domestic energy intensity by business size ____________________________ 34
How has energy consumption/intensity in non-domestic buildings changed over time? 35
How has total energy consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time (2012
– 2020)? ___________________________________________________________ 36
How has median energy consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over time
(2012 – 2020)? ______________________________________________________ 38
How has median energy intensity in non-domestic buildings changed over time (2012
– 2020)? ___________________________________________________________ 40
Investigating consumption from buildings with low-consuming non-domestic meters __ 42
Electricity consumption________________________________________________ 42
Gas consumption ____________________________________________________ 43
Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures from other publications ___ 46
Consumption by building use ___________________________________________ 46
Main limitations of ND-NEED ______________________________________________ 50
Accompanying tables ____________________________________________________ 53
Revisions policy _________________________________________________________ 54
User engagement _______________________________________________________ 54
Contact _______________________________________________________________ 54

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1. Introduction
The Non-Domestic National Energy Efficiency Data-Framework 2022 (ND-NEED 2022)
provides an insight into the electricity and gas consumption/intensity of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales in 2020 (split by sector, building size and occupying
business size) and how this has changed over time. It also provides new information on the
non-domestic building stock, with a breakdown of non-domestic buildings by year of
construction and occupying business size.

Further information on the number of buildings in the non-domestic building stock and non-
domestic floor area first published in ND-NEED 2020 is also available.
ND-NEED is based on the Valuation Office Agency (VOA)’s list of all non-domestic
premises (“hereditaments”) in England and Wales (the non-domestic ratings list (NDR)) and
the VOA’s summary valuation data (SMV) which contains information on the premises’ size.
Whilst ND-NEED 2020 and 2021 used the position of the 2017 NDR/SMV as at the end of
March 2020, this updates the picture to the end of March 20221. BEIS have been given
access to this data via a legal gateway (specified in an information sharing agreement), and
securely receives this data directly from the VOA.
The NDR/SMV dataset received from VOA comprises 2,143,000 hereditaments across
England and Wales. However, in ND-NEED, the NDR/SMV data are aggregated to the
building level (Unique Property Reference Number (UPRN)). The data are used, following
further processing, to provide information about the number, use, floor area and age of
buildings in the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock. This dataset covers all the
1,755,000 buildings2 in the ND-NEED non-domestic building population.
The non-domestic building stock is then matched to information on electricity and gas
consumption (2012-2020) at meter point level, held by BEIS. This gives a large sample of
895,000 non-domestic buildings with electricity consumption data (for at least one of these
years) and 365,000 non-domestic buildings with gas consumption data. This sample is then
matched to business data to provide information on the size of the business occupying a
building.
The matched dataset can then be used to analyse the electricity/gas consumption/intensity
of non-domestic buildings from a large sample size. The sample contains information on
building use, building size and occupying business size (for those successfully matched) so
the consumption data can be disaggregated by these characteristics. The resulting
consumption data for the sample are then weighted to be representative of the population
level.
More information about producing the ND-NEED sample and the weighting process can be
found in the accompanying Methodology note.
The next update to ND-NEED is currently planned for the summer of 2023.

1 VOA presents statistics on non-domestic properties (numbers and floor space) on a hereditament basis.
2 This excludes all non-buildings, as well as the 127,000 hereditaments that do not have UPRNs.

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What questions can be answered by ND-NEED 2022?
•
How many non-domestic buildings are there in England and Wales and how do they
breakdown by building use and building size?
•
What is the floor area of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales and how
does this breakdown by building use and building size?
•
How does the non-domestic building stock breakdown by year of construction, and
occupying business size?
•
How does non-domestic electricity/gas consumption/intensity change by building
use, building size and occupying business size?
•
How has electricity/gas meter consumption/intensity of non-domestic buildings
changed over time (2012-2020)?
What questions cannot be answered by ND-NEED 2022?
•
What is the electricity/gas consumption/intensity of non-domestic buildings in
Scotland and Northern Ireland?
•
What are non-domestic buildings using their energy for (e.g. is energy used for
heating/lighting/industrial processes etc.)?
•
How much of other fuels (e.g. biomass/LPG/oil) do non-domestic buildings
consume?
•
How much energy generated onsite is consumed by non-domestic buildings?
•
How does non-domestic building energy use differ between rented/owner-occupied
buildings?
Further information related to these questions can be found in Energy Consumption in the
UK (ECUK), the Building Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES) and the Digest of UK Energy
Statistics (DUKES), while the Sub-national electricity and gas consumption statistics
provide information on meter point consumption for all four UK countries.

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2. Results
England and Wales non-domestic building stock
In ND-NEED a building is defined as a property that has a unique property reference
number (UPRN). In general, each building has a distinct UPRN, so the information
presented in ND-NEED can be considered to be at the building level.
There are however a few exceptions to this. Where a single physical structure contains
multiple properties with UPRNs e.g. a shopping centre containing multiple shops each
with distinct UPRNs, then this is considered to be multiple buildings in ND-NEED.
Where multiple physical structures have a single UPRN e.g. a university campus or a
hospital, then this is considered to be a single building in ND-NEED.
Under the ND-NEED definition, there were 1,755,000, non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales at the end of March 2022. This is an
increase of 6% on the end-March 2020 figure of 1,656,000. Of this
increase, around 41,000 is due to a reduction in the number of
buildings that do not have a UPRN allocated to them. The remaining
58,000 are new/repurposed non-domestic buildings (net of any
removals). Further information on this, and other, revisions can be
found in the accompanying Methodology note.
There are some building types that are not covered by the ND-NEED
figures. These are:
• Agricultural Buildings, Places of Worship and Prisons
as these are not included in the VOA’s list of non-
domestic properties (the NDR) that ND-NEED is based
on. It is estimated these building types make up 4% of
non-domestic buildings in England and Wales3.
• Caravan Parks, Advertising Premises4, Car Parks, Beach Huts, Quarries, and
Telecoms5. These are included in the NDR but are not considered to be buildings in
ND-NEED and so are excluded. The exclusion of these ‘non-buildings’ from ND-
NEED reduces the number of buildings in the stock by 8%.

3 Figures based on the UCL Carb model, UCL’s non-domestic energy use model which provides estimates of
total number of buildings for different building types.
4 Places uses for advertisement e.g. roundabout adverts, bus shelter adverts, advertising banners.
5 Places used for communication e.g. communication stations, public telephones, telephone exchanges.
The number of ND-NEED
non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, end of
March 2022
1,755,000
Non-domestic
buildings

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Non-domestic buildings by building use
According to the definition of a building in ND-NEED, within a single building there may be
several building uses. Where this is the case, the building use is assigned to that of the
component premises (“hereditament”) that has the largest floor area.
This will have a distorting effect on the building stock figures as uses that often occur as the
smaller use (by floor area) in mixed used buildings will be underestimated. However, as
only 3% of buildings in the ND-NEED building stock contain multiple hereditaments, the
impact of this distortion on the building stock figures presented in ND-NEED is likely to be
negligible.
The breakdown of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building use can be
seen in Figure 2.
Figure 2: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building use (as at end of March 2022).
*ACL is an abbreviation for Arts, Community and Leisure
Shops are the largest building use category with 497,000 buildings (28% of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales). The next largest category is Offices with 358,000
buildings (20% of all non-domestic buildings in England and Wales), then Factories with
239,000 (14% of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales).6

6 Further information on the composition of the building use types can be found in the accompanying
Methodology note (Annex C).

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Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building use
The combined floor area of all non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED for which floor area
information is available is 618,888,000 m2 (see Table 1). Of the 1,755,000 buildings in ND-
NEED, 319,000 (18%) do not have floor area information. Because of this, all floor area
information presented here should be treated with caution as it will be an underestimate.
The three reasons that buildings may be missing floor area information are:
1. Some non-domestic buildings do not have floor area information available in the SMV
data.
2. If a hereditament in a non-domestic building has a floor area of less than 15m2 in the
SMV it is treated as having no floor area information in ND-NEED.
3. If non-domestic buildings fall into a building use category where floor area data does not
inform the VOA rating, then it is treated as having no floor area data in ND-NEED. This
means that there are some distortions in the floor area by building use figures, as some
building uses will have more floor area information excluded than others. However, this
distortion is likely to be small because the excluded building use categories are very
diverse and include buildings in all building use categories.
Table 1: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use (as at end of March 2022).
Building use type
Total floor area (m2)
Proportion of total floor
area
Arts, Community and Leisure
15,341,000
2%
Education
3,841,000
1%
Emergency Services
147,000
0%
Factories
151,453,000
24%
Health
2,360,000
0%
Hospitality
13,328,000
2%
Offices
76,461,000
12%
Shops
99,934,000
16%
Warehouses
209,624,000
34%
Other
46,399,000
7%
Total
618,888,000
100%

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From Table 1, we can see that Warehouses are the building use which occupies the largest
floor area, with a third of non-domestic floor area. This is followed by Factories, occupying a
quarter of non-domestic floor area, and Shops occupying 16%.
We can also compare the number of buildings in a building use category and the floor area
that the building use category occupies. From Figure 3, we can see that for several sectors
there are substantial differences in the share of building use between the two measures.
Both Warehouses and Factories occupy a greater proportion of non-domestic floor area
than their share of the total number of non-domestic buildings. This is because these
building uses generally occupy large sites. For all other building use sectors, the proportion
of the total number of non-domestic buildings that they occupy is larger than their share of
the non-domestic floor area (with the exception of Other where the share is roughly the
same).
Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings where floor
area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the building size
distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is the same as that of
those with this information.

Figure 3: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by
building use (as at end of March 2022).

Number of non-domestic buildings by building size
The breakdown of the number of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by building
size can be seen in Figure 4.

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Figure 4: The number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and Wales by
building size (as at end of March 2022).

The general trend is that as building size increases, the number of non-domestic buildings
decreases. This is true even though the building size categories used in ND-NEED are
wider for larger business sizes.
Almost 75% of non-domestic buildings in England and Wales (for which floor area
information is available) have a floor area of less than 250m2, and more than 90% have a
floor area of less than 1,000m2.
Note, because 319,000 (17%) of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED are missing building
size information, the number of buildings in each size category is likely to be an
underestimate as some buildings in the missing category will fall into them as well.
Floor area of non-domestic buildings by building size
The total floor area of non-domestic buildings in each floor area band is given in Table 2.
This shows that larger buildings occupy a greater proportion of non-domestic floor area
than smaller buildings. This is despite there being fewer larger buildings in the non-
domestic building stock.
The difference between the building number and total floor area trends by building size can
be seen in Figure 5.
Note, the proportions presented are only based on the non-domestic buildings where floor
area information is available. They therefore implicitly assume that the building size
distribution of the buildings that are missing building size information is the same as that of
those with this information.

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Table 2: The total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size (as at end of March 2022).

Building size
Total floor area (m2) Proportion of total floor area
0 - 50m2
10,412,000
2%
>50 - 100m2
25,757,000
4%
>100 - 250m2
61,116,000
10%
>250 - 500m2
62,588,000
10%
>500 – 1000m2
67,356,000
11%
>1000m2 – 5000m2
168,314,000
27%
>5000 m2
223,346,000
36%
Total
618,888,000
100%

Figure 5: The share of ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by
building size (as at end of March 2022).

Non-domestic buildings by year of construction
The ND-NEED non-domestic building stock can be split by year of construction. This is
carried out by using the building age variable in the VOA’s NDR list, which provides
information on when each building was completed.

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Figure 6: Breakdown of the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and
Wales by year of construction.

Note, since the building stock data are as at end of March 2022, data for 2022 (and, due to
lags, possibly 2021) is not complete. This means that the number of buildings constructed
will be underestimated.

From Figure 6 we can see that more than a quarter of non-domestic buildings in the ND-
NEED non-domestic building stock (with year of construction information available) were
built before 1900, and almost two thirds were built before 1970. As building practices and
standards, particular around energy efficiency, have changed over time this has
implications for the measures that will be needed to decarbonise the non-domestic building
stock.
Rate of non-domestic building construction
By looking at the year buildings in the ND-NEED building stock were constructed we can
also gain insight into how the rate of non-domestic building construction has changed over
time (see Figure 7).

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Figure 7: Number of buildings in the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock
constructed between 1900 and 2020 in England and Wales, by number and floor area.

Note, Figure 7 uses a smoothed line graph. For buildings built between 1900 and 1970
(inclusive) where data is only available as bands covering a period of several years, the
data is averaged over that time period and plotted for the middle year. For years between
1971 and 2020 (inclusive), the data is presented as a 3-year rolling average. As 2021 and
2022 year of construction data are incomplete, these years has been omitted. This does not
include the 266,000 buildings missing year of construction data, or 419,000 buildings built
pre-1900.
Figure 7 shows that there is a general trend that the rate of construction of the buildings in
the non-domestic building stock (as at end of March 2022) increased steeply between 1940
and 1970 and has remained at a new higher level since then, though there is substantial
year to year variation.
This could reflect an increase in the total rate of non-domestic building construction in this
time period, but it is important to note that this data does not capture buildings that were
built between 1900 and 2020, but that were removed from the stock before 2020 (e.g.
buildings that were demolished, buildings that were repurposed for domestic use etc.)
which is likely to disproportionately affect older buildings.
There is also evidence that the rate of construction of buildings in the non-domestic building
stock (as at end of March 2022) is impacted by economic and other events, with a
substantial fall in construction seen around the 1990 and 2008 recessions and during the
first year of the covid-19 pandemic – 2020 (there was an 18% decrease in the number of
non-domestic buildings built in comparison to 2019). This trend is seen across all ND-
NEED building uses.
The average rate of construction of buildings in the non-domestic building stock (as at end
of March 2022) between 2010 and 2020 inclusive was 8,000 buildings per year,

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representing 0.5% of the building stock in ND-NEED with year of construction data. The
construction rate in 2010 – 2020 is lower than in previous years, with evidence of a
reduction in the rate of non-domestic building construction in 2008, potentially due to the
2008 financial crash.
Figure 7 also provides information on the rate of floor area construction in buildings in the
non-domestic building stock (as at end of March 2022). By comparing this to the rate of
non-domestic building construction this can provide an insight into changes in the average
size of new non-domestic buildings.
This provides some evidence that the average size of non-domestic buildings in the non-
domestic building stock (as at end of March 2022) has increased over time. For example,
around 11,000 buildings were built in each of 1958, 1971 and 2002, with the average floor
area increasing from 400m2 to 700m2 and then to 800 m2. This trend is not driven by
missing floor area data in ND-NEED since the proportion of buildings missing this is
relatively constant across building ages, with slightly more floor area data missing from
newer buildings.
For the first time, this year’s report contains analysis on the number of newly constructed
buildings and the ones that have left the ND-NEED stock, either through demolition,
(temporary or permanent) closure or repurpose (including conversion to domestic use). This
shows that there were 191,000 additional buildings in 2022 compared to 2020. The analysis
also shows that there were 92,000 building which were removed from the stock in the same
2020 to 2022 period, which gives us a net additions figure of 99,000. Of these 99,000
buildings, 41,000 are existing buildings that have been allocated UPRNs in the latest data,
with 58,000 newly added buildings (net of removals).
Non-domestic buildings by business size
Business size information is obtained by matching the Interdepartmental Business Register
(IDBR) business characteristics data to the 1,755,000 ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
the building stock. This gives the breakdown of the non-domestic building stock by business
size that can be seen in Figure 8.
Note, the number of employees refers to the number of employees employed by the
business as a whole, not just the employees that work in the building. This means that
small branches of larger businesses e.g. a corner shop that is part of a national chain, will
be in the larger categories.

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Figure 8: Breakdown of the ND-NEED non-domestic building stock in England and
Wales by business size.

Figure 8 shows that the majority of non-domestic buildings (for which business size data
are available) are occupied by SMEs (<250 employees), with micro businesses (<10
employees) being the most common business size. However, around 70% of the buildings
in the non-domestic building stock are missing business size information.
There are two reasons why buildings cannot be matched to business size information:
1. The UPRN of the corresponding building is missing from the IDBR dataset, either
because the building itself is missing; or

2. The building is in the IDBR dataset but we are unable to match it to its corresponding
UPRN. This means the business size cannot be matched to the building.

Given the high number of buildings missing business size information, the number of
buildings occupied by a business of a particular size, across all categories is likely to be
underestimated. It is also possible that the true pattern of distribution of businesses in the
non-domestic building stock is different from what is presented here. This means these
estimates should be used with caution as they are associated with substantial uncertainty.
England and Wales non-domestic building energy
consumption/intensity
According to ND-NEED, in total non-domestic buildings in England and Wales used 127
TWh of electricity and 147 TWh of gas in 2020 (the most recent year for which data are
available).
These consumption figures are based on the sample (895,000 buildings for electricity
consumption and 365,000 for gas consumption) of the ND-NEED building stock that was
successfully matched to electricity and gas meter-point data (gas consumption figures are
temperature corrected). This sample is then weighted to be representative of the population
(over 1.8 million buildings). More information about the sampling and weighting process in
ND-NEED can be found in the accompanying Methodology note.

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Note, these figures are not directly comparable to the 2019 consumption figures published
in ND-NEED 2021 due to methodological revisions. For more information on these revisions
please see the accompanying Methodology note. For comparable figures for 2019
consumption, please see the consumption time series in Table 8 of the accompanying data
tables.
Because the consumption figures are based on meter-point data, any energy consumed
that is not via the electricity or gas grid (e.g. energy generated onsite from renewables) is
not included. According to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics (DUKES)7 88% of non-
domestic building electricity consumption was from the grid in 2020.
The fact that ND-NEED is based on meter-point data also means that the consumption
figures cover all grid energy consumed by a non-domestic building, regardless of end-use
e.g. heating, lighting, industrial processes etc. This is different from some other publications
such as the Building Energy Efficiency Survey (BEES) which only covers energy consumed
by the building itself e.g. heating, lighting, but not energy consumed by activities within the
building e.g. industrial processes.

Non-domestic energy consumption by building use
Electricity consumption
Figure 9: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building use, 2020.

Figure 9 shows non-domestic building electricity consumption by building use. It shows that
Factories are the building use that consumes the most electricity (42 TWh in 2020). This is
twice the consumption of the next highest consuming building use, Offices (19 TWh).

7 DUKES, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration used as a proxy for non-domestic
buildings. Public Distribution System as a share of Total Consumption.
*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure

17

This is despite there being more Shops (497,000) and Offices (358,000) than there are
Factories (239,000) in England and Wales. This suggests that Factories are carrying out
processes that have high electricity demands (such as industrial processes whose energy
consumption is captured in ND-NEED).
Distributional analysis: Electricity consumption
ND-NEED 2022 can also provide further information about how electricity consumption is
distributed within the non-domestic building stock. This analysis is based on the ND-NEED
2022 sample that is weighted to be representative of the non-domestic building population
(for more information see the accompanying Methodology note. For example, we can look
at the frequency of different electricity consumption values.
Figure 10: Frequency of different electricity consumption values for all non-domestic
buildings, 2020.

Note: This histogram has unweighted electricity consumption on the x-axis (ascending
order), shown on a base-10 log scale. The y-axis shows a frequency count, that is the
weighted number of buildings that have electricity consumption 2020 values within the
corresponding consumption band.
Figure 10 plots electricity consumption against the frequency of buildings whose
consumption falls within that band. The highest bar on the chart represents consumption
between 3,160 kWh (103.5 kWh) and 10,000 kWh (104 kWh) per year. This means that
Figure 7 shows that a plurality of buildings consume between 3,160 kWh (103.5 kWh) and
10,000 kWh (104 kWh) per year, and fewer buildings have consumption at either the lower
or higher extremes.

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There are also a substantial number of buildings whose consumption is lower than average
domestic consumption (3,800 kWh)8 in 2020. This is 24% of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample.
Note, that the distribution in Figure 10 is on a log-10 scale. This is because the underlying
data is very positively skewed with a long tail of high-consuming sites. This positive skew
can also be seen in the data when you look at the comparison between the weighted
median electricity consumption and the weighted mean electricity consumption. The
weighted median electricity consumption of non-domestic buildings is 5,900 kWh,
compared to a weighted mean electricity consumption of 70,500 kWh.

We can also present the data in Figure 10 split by building use. Figure 11 shows that the
distribution of electricity consumption remains broadly similar between sectors, with a peak
of buildings with similar electricity consumption values, and fewer buildings with both lower
and higher electricity consumption.
There are however some differences between building uses. Factories, Offices and Shops
have a longer tail compared to Hospitality, showing that there are proportionally more very
high and very low consuming Factories, Offices and Shops. The smaller tails and more
uniform distribution of the Hospitality sector distribution suggest that Hospitality buildings
have more homogenous electricity consumption than the other sectors.

Figure 11: Frequency of different electricity consumption values, by building use,
2020.

8 Subnational electricity and gas consumption summary report 2020.

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Note: This histogram has unweighted electricity consumption on the x-axis
(ascending order), shown on a base-10 log scale. The y-axis shows a frequency
count, that is the weighted number of buildings that have electricity consumption
2020 values within the corresponding consumption band.

Another way we can look at the distribution of electricity consumption in ND-NEED is
looking at the proportion of total electricity consumption that comes from a given proportion
of the building stock. This will help us to understand the impact of the small number of high
consuming sites (identified above) on total electricity consumption.
Figure 12: The proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order)
against the proportion of total electricity consumption, 2020.

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample with 2020 electricity consumption on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted electricity
consumption). The y-axis shows the proportion of weighted 2020 electricity consumption
that these buildings are consuming.
From Figure 12 we can see that the majority of non-domestic building electricity
consumption comes from a minority of non-domestic buildings (80% of consumption comes
from the 6% highest consuming buildings). This shows that the small number of high
consuming sites identified in Figure 12 have a substantial impact on total electricity
consumption.

20

Figure 13: The proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order)
against the proportion of total electricity consumption, by building use, 2020.

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-NEED
sample with 2020 electricity consumption on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted electricity
consumption). The y-axis shows the proportion of weighted 2020 electricity consumption
that these buildings are consuming.
We can also split this analysis by building use (Figure 13). From Figure 13 we can see that
the overall pattern of a minority of high-consuming buildings being responsible for a majority
of electricity consumption is seen across all building uses.
For Factories, 80% of electricity consumption comes from the highest consuming 1% of
buildings. For Education, 80% of consumption comes from the highest consuming 27% of
buildings.

21

Gas consumption
Figure 14: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building use, 2020.

Figure 14 shows that the pattern for gas consumption by building use is similar to that of
electricity consumption. Factories have the highest gas consumption, at 56 TWh in 2020.
This is over four times higher than the gas consumption of any other building use (excluding
the ‘Other’ category). This is despite the fact that Factories are not the largest building use
category in terms of building numbers.
As with electricity consumption, the high gas consumption of Factories is in part driven by
their large size and in part by the high gas consuming processes they carry out:
•
Factories account for 14% of non-domestic buildings, but 24% of non-domestic
building floor area (of the buildings with floor area information available).
•
From Energy Consumption in the UK (ECUK)9 we can see that industrial processes
(high and low temperature processes, drying/separation, motors, compressed air)
are responsible for over three-quarters (78%) of gas use in industry, and so a large
part of gas consumption in Factories is likely to be driven by these processes.
Most other building types consumed around 10 TWh of gas in 2020. The exceptions to this
are Arts, Community and Leisure, where the buildings consumed 5 TWh of gas, and
Emergency Services where the buildings consumed 2 TWh of gas.

9 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U2.
*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure

22

Distributional analysis: Gas consumption
As we did for electricity consumption, we can also apply the distributional analysis to gas
consumption from non-domestic buildings. Firstly, we can look at the frequency of different
levels of gas consumption to understand the most common gas consumption level from
non-domestic buildings.

Figure 15: Frequency of different gas consumption values for all non-domestic
buildings, 2020.

Note: This histogram has weighted gas consumption on the x-axis (ascending order),
shown on a log scale (log10). Placeholder values of <1.1 kWh have been excluded. The y-
axis shows a frequency count, that is the number of buildings that have gas consumption
values within the corresponding consumption band.
Figure 15 plots gas consumption against the frequency of buildings whose consumption
falls within that band. The tallest bar on the chart represents consumption between 10,000
kWh (104 kWh) and 31,600 kWh (104.5 kWh) per year. This means that Figure 16 shows
that a plurality of buildings consume between 10,000 kWh (104 kWh) and 31,600 kWh (104.5
kWh) per year, and fewer buildings have consumption at either the lower or higher
extremes.
Note, Figure 15 is presented on a log10 scale because the underlying data is very positively
skewed with a long tail of high-consuming sites. This positive skew can also be seen in the
data when you look at the comparison between the weighted median gas consumption and
the weighted mean gas consumption. The weighted median gas consumption of non-
domestic buildings is 26,900 kWh, compared to a weighted mean gas consumption of
175,200 kWh.

23

We can also present the data in Figure 15 split by building use. Figure 16 shows Shops,
Factories and Offices all have a modal consumption of 10,000 kWh to 31,600 kWh (104
kWh to 104.5 kWh). Hospitality has a higher modal class at 31,600 kWh to 100,000 kWh
(104.5 kWh to 105 kWh), which is consistent with Hospitality having a higher median gas
consumption than Shops, Factories or Offices.

Figure 16: Frequency of different gas consumption values, split by building use,
2020.

Note: This histogram has unweighted gas consumption on the x-axis (ascending order),
shown on a base-10 log scale. Placeholder values of <1.1 kWh have been excluded. The y-
axis shows a frequency count, that is the weighted number of buildings that have electricity
consumption 2020 values within the corresponding consumption band.
To further understand the distribution of gas consumption within the non-domestic building
stock we can also look at the proportion of non-domestic building consumption that comes
from the highest consuming buildings. This will help us to understand how the few
extremely high consuming sites (identified above) impact total gas consumption.

24

Figure 17: Proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order) against
the proportion of total gas consumption, 2020.

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-
NEED sample on the x axis (ordered by unweighted gas consumption). The y-
axis shows the proportion of weighted 2020 gas consumption that these
buildings are consuming. Placeholder values of <1.1 kWh have been excluded.
From Figure 17 we can see that the majority of non-domestic building gas consumption
comes from a minority of non-domestic buildings (80% of consumption comes from the 4%
highest consuming buildings). This shows that the small number of high consuming sites
identified in Figure 11 above have a substantial impact on total gas consumption. This is
the same pattern that is seen for electricity consumption.
We can also split this analysis by building use. From Figure 18, we can see that this pattern
is seen across all building uses. As for electricity this pattern is most convex for Factories,
with 80% of consumption coming from the 1% highest consuming buildings, and least
extreme in the Education sector, with 80% of consumption coming from the 32% highest
consuming buildings.

25

Figure 18: Proportion of the building stock (in ascending consumption order) against
the proportion of total gas consumption, by building use, 2020.

Note: This cumulative distribution plot has the proportion of buildings in the ND-
NEED sample on the x-axis (ordered by unweighted gas consumption). The y-
axis shows the proportion of weighted 2020 gas consumption that these buildings
are consuming. Placeholder values of <1.1 kWh have been excluded.

Non-domestic energy intensity by building use
The level of energy consumption in a building use category is in part driven by the number
and size of buildings of that type. To control for this, energy intensity can be used. Energy
intensity is the average amount of energy used in a square metre of a building. Differences
in energy intensity between sectors are therefore not affected by differences in the number
or size of buildings.
The electricity intensity figures presented in ND-NEED are the median electricity intensity,
weighted by the energy weight. Buildings which are missing floor area information are
excluded (see Non-domestic energy consumption by building size).

26

Electricity intensity
Figure 19: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building use, 2020

Figure 19 shows that median electricity intensity by building use has a very different pattern
to total electricity consumption. Hospitality is the building use with the highest median
electricity intensity (111 kWh/m2), despite having relatively low total electricity consumption
(6 TWh). This high electricity intensity is likely driven by the fact that hospitality buildings
generally operate in small building premises and often perform activities such as catering
which have high electricity demands10.
By contrast, Factories have a relatively low median electricity intensity (30 kWh/m2) but high
total electricity consumption (42 TWh). The low electricity intensity of Factories suggests
that their high electricity demands driven by the industrial processes they carry out, are
counterbalanced by the large size of these sites.

10 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5.
*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure

27

Gas intensity
Figure 20: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by building use, 2020

As for electricity, Figure 20 shows that Hospitality is the building use category with the
highest median gas intensity (242 kWh/m2), consuming almost 20% more gas per square
meter than any other building type. This is at least partly due to the high gas demands of
the catering activities that often occur in hospitality buildings. This can be seen in other
publications that split energy consumption by end-use (ECUK11 and BEES12).
The lowest gas intensities are seen in Factories and Warehouses with 83 kWh/m2 and 62
kWh/m2 respectively. A key driver of the low gas intensities of Factories and Warehouses is
likely to be their large building size. Together, Factories and Warehouses occupy 58% of
non-domestic building floor area, despite only accounting for 26% of non-domestic buildings
(see Table 1 and Figure 2 in Non-domestic buildings by building use).

11 ECUK, End-use data tables, Table U5.
12 BEES, Overarching tables, Figure 3.13.
*ACL – Arts, Community and Leisure

28

Non-domestic energy consumption by building size
Electricity consumption
Figure 21: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building size, 2020.

As shown by Figure 21, there is a clear trend that, as building size increases, the share of
total electricity consumption increases; this is particularly true for buildings that are over
1,000m2. This trend is not driven by the number of buildings as there are more buildings in
the smaller floor area categories than there are in the larger ones. Instead, this trend is at
least partly driven by the floor area of buildings in these categories. The total floor area has
a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures with a greater floor area in the larger
floor area bands.
Note, there is a proportion of non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED that are missing building
size information – 18% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED sample with electricity
consumption in 2020 are missing floor area information. These buildings are responsible for
50 TWh (39%) of electricity consumption. This means figures on the electricity consumption
of a particular building size should be used with caution as they are likely to be an
underestimate. It also means that there is some uncertainty associated with the building
size trend presented above.

29

Gas consumption
Figure 22: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by building size, 2020.

As with electricity consumption, Figure 22 shows that gas consumption tends to increase as
building size increases. Again, this trend is at least in part driven by the larger total floor
area of the buildings in the larger floor area bands.
It is again important to note the substantial size of the ‘Building size missing’ category which
makes up 64 TWh (43%) of consumption, more than any other building size category. This
consumption comes from the 20% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas consumption sample
that are missing building size information. The size of the missing category means that that
the consumption figures for each building size category are likely to be underestimates and
so should be used with caution. It also means there is some uncertainty associated with the
results above.

30

Non-domestic energy intensity by building size
Electricity intensity
Figure 23: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by building size, 2020.

Median electricity intensity (Figure 23) shows the opposite trend to total electricity
consumption, with smaller buildings generally using more electricity per square metre than
larger buildings
Gas intensity
Figure 24: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by building size, 2020.

31

Like electricity, median gas intensity shows the opposite trend to gas consumption with
smaller buildings using more gas per square metre (Figure 24). This trend is more
pronounced for gas intensity than it is for electricity intensity.
Non-domestic energy consumption by business size
Non-domestic building energy consumption can also be broken down by business size. In
ND-NEED, business size refers to the number of employees of the business occupying the
building.
As is the case for the building stock, in the energy consumption business size categories
the number of employees refers to the number of employees employed by the business as
a whole, not just the employees that work in the building. This means that small branches of
larger businesses e.g. a corner shop that is part of a national chain, will be in the larger
categories.
A Micro business has fewer than 10 employees, a Small business has 10 - 49 employees, a
Medium business has 50 - 249 employees, a Large business has 250 - 999 employees and
a Very Large business has 1,000 employees or more.
Note, the weighting used to scale up consumption from the ND-NEED sample to the
population does not account for potential differences between the size of businesses in the
sample and the size of businesses in the population. This is because of the lower coverage
of business size information in the building stock (only 30% of non-domestic buildings have
business size information). This means there is more uncertainty around whether the
energy consumption figures by business size are representative of the population, than for
the consumption figures by building use or by floor area.

32

Electricity consumption
Figure 25: The electricity consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by business size, 2020.

Figure 25 shows the contribution of buildings occupied by businesses of different sizes to
non-domestic building electricity consumption. Buildings occupied by Very Large
businesses consume the most electricity (31 TWh), followed by buildings occupied by
Medium sized businesses (12 TWh), with buildings occupied by Micro, Small and Large
businesses consuming the least electricity (around 9 to 10 TWh). This is a different pattern
to that seen in the number of buildings in the non-domestic building stock (see Figure 8,
where Microbusinesses represent 58% of the stock (with available business size
information), and Very Large 15%.
Note, 54 TWh of electricity consumption is missing business size information. This
corresponds to the 481,000 buildings of the 855,000 in the ND-NEED electricity
consumption sample for 2020, where information on the occupying business size is not
available.
In ND-NEED the business size information comes from the IDBR business characteristics
dataset which is matched onto the non-domestic buildings and energy consumption data.
There are two reasons why business size information may not be available:
•
The IDBR dataset may not contain business size information for a building.
•
The IDBR dataset may contain business size information, but this cannot be
successfully matched to the corresponding building.
Because of the substantial size of the ‘Business size missing’ consumption category, the
consumption figures for other categories e.g. Micro, Small etc. should be used with caution
as they are likely to be underestimates (as some of the consumption in the ‘Business size
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Missing
Micro (<10
employees)
Small (10-49
employees)
Medium (50-
249
employees)
Large (250-999
employees)
Very Large
(1,000+
employees)
Electricity consumption (TWh)

33

missing’ category should be in those categories). It also means that there is substantial
uncertainty around the pattern of results.
Gas consumption
Figure 26: The gas consumption of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales by business size, 2020.

As Figure 26 shows, gas consumption by business size shows a similar pattern to electricity
consumption. Buildings occupied by Very Large sized businesses consume most gas (30
TWh), followed by Medium-sized businesses (20 TWh), Large (17 TWh) and Micro and
Small businesses (11 and 9 TWh respectively).
It is again important to note the substantial consumption of 60 TWh from the ‘Business size
missing’ category. This is because 177,000 of the 350,000 buildings in the ND-NEED gas
consumption sample for 2020 are missing business size information. Because of this, the
consumption figures for each business size category are likely to be underestimates (as
some consumption from buildings that are missing business size information is likely to fall
into each category), and there is substantial uncertainty around the pattern of results seen.

0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Missing
Micro (<10
employees)
Small (10-49
employees)
Medium (50-
249
employees)
Large (250-
999
employees)
Very Large
(1,000+
employees)
Gas consumption (TWh)

34

Non-domestic energy intensity by business size
Electricity intensity
Figure 27: The median electricity intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales by business size, 2020.

From Figure 27 we can see that electricity intensity increases with the size of the business.
It is greatest among Very Large businesses (103 kWh/m2), with micro businesses having
the lowest intensity (60 kWh/m2).
As with the electricity consumption figures it is important to note the substantial size of the
business size missing category – 38% of buildings in the ND-NEED sample that have floor
area information are missing business size information. This makes it difficult to draw any
firm conclusions from the results as they are associated with a high degree of uncertainty.

0
20
40
60
80
100
120
Missing
Micro (<10
employees)
Small (10-49
employees)
Medium (50-
249
employees)
Large (250-
999
employees)
Very Large
(1,000+
employees)
Median electrcity intensity (kWh/m2)

35

Gas intensity
Figure 28: The median gas intensity of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales by business size, 2020.

Gas intensity by business size is by far the greatest among Micro businesses (175
kWh/m2). Then, it shows a different trend to electricity intensity, mainly decreasing with the
size of the business (intensity of Very Large businesses being the exception).
Again, it is important to note the substantial size of the business size missing category –
over half (54%) of buildings in the ND-NEED sample that have both gas consumption and
floor area information are missing business size information. This makes it difficult to draw
any firm conclusions from the results.
How has energy consumption/intensity in non-domestic
buildings changed over time?
ND-NEED can also provide information on the electricity and gas consumption/intensity
over time, which can be disaggregated by building use.
Note: the electricity consumption year is a calendar year (Jan – Dec), the gas consumption
year runs from mid-May to mid-May.

0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
Missing
Micro (<10
employees)
Small (10-49
employees)
Medium (50-
249
employees)
Large (250-
999
employees)
Very Large
(1,000+
employees)
Median gas intensity kWh/m2)

36

In this update we have presented several energy consumption/intensity time series:
1. Total electricity and gas consumption over time (2012 – 2020)
2. Median electricity and gas consumption over time (2012 – 2020)
3. Median electricity and gas intensity over time (2012 – 2020)

Note, because the ND-NEED statistics are created by scaling up the results from a sample
of buildings to the population level (rather than from the whole population directly) there is
some degree of uncertainty surrounding all ND-NEED estimates. Because of this
uncertainty small changes in the ND-NEED consumption figures over time could just be
noise rather than showing a true change.

How has total energy consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over
time (2012 – 2020)?
Electricity consumption
Figure 29: Total electricity consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales (2012-2020).

Figure 29 shows that, according to ND-NEED, the electricity consumption of non-domestic
buildings in England and Wales remained relatively constant between 2012 and 2019 with
some evidence of a slight decrease. There was a noticeable reduction (8% decrease
compared to 2019) in 2020 consumption due to the covid-19 pandemic and consequent

37

trading restrictions. This is broadly consistent with the trend seen in other publications such
as the Subnational electricity consumption statistics and DUKES13.
Unlike other publications, in ND-NEED this time series can also be split by building use.
This shows that all building uses show a similar pattern to total consumption, with
consumption remaining broadly stable between 2012 and 2019. However, electricity
consumption in every sector, besides the “Other” sector (which increased by 25%, largely
due to increased use by electricity hereditaments, for example, power station premises -
further information in Annex C of the Methodology note), fell in 2020, with an overall fall of
8% Hospitality experienced the largest decrease, of 34% on 2019, but Arts, Community
and Leisure, Shops and Offices also fell by over 10%.
Gas consumption14
Figure 30: Total gas consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales, 2012-2020.

Note, the gas consumption figures in ND-NEED are temperature adjusted so any
temperature differences between years will not influence the ND-NEED gas consumption
trend.
Figure 30 shows that, according to ND-NEED, gas consumption in non-domestic buildings
remained broadly stable between 2012 and 2020, varying between 144 TWh and 152 TWh.
In 2020, overall gas consumption fell by just 1% compared to 2019 (following a fall of 3% in
2019); however, consumption in the Hospitality sector fell by 17% (following a fall of 17% in

13 Dukes, Table 5.2, Sectors: Industry, Commercial, Public administration.
14 ND-NEED gas consumption years are not calendar years but run from mid-May to mid-May. For example,
data from 2020 is data from mid-May 2020 – mid-May 2021. A full historical breakdown of the time periods
used can be found in the Subnational consumption summary report on page 16. For more information see the
methodology note of the Subnational gas consumption statistics which provide the gas consumption figures in
ND-NEED.

38

2019 as well), being a sector particularly affected by the pandemic restrictions (the gas
reporting period from mid-May to mid-May meant that 2019 data already captured some
covid-19 effects). This was half of the electricity consumption decrease in this building use
though. Shops saw a 2% decrease in 2020 compared to 2019, with Offices and Factories
seeing 3% and 2% increases respectively. This is consistent with the trend seen in the
DUKES15. Sub-national gas consumption statistics showed a slight increase (2%) in 2020.
How has median energy consumption in non-domestic buildings changed over
time (2012 – 2020)?
Another way to investigate how non-domestic building energy use has changed over time is
to the look at median consumption. This will be less affected by consumption from a few
high consuming buildings than the total consumption time series.
Electricity consumption
Figure 31: Median electricity consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, 2012-2020.

Figure 31 shows that median electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings has
decreased by 18% between 2012 and 2019 and a further 21% in 2020 compared to 2019.
The biggest decreases in 2020 compared to 2019 were seen in the Arts, Community and
Leisure and Hospitality building uses (38% and 33% decrease respectively), in line with the
overall consumption falls in these sectors, attributable to the pandemic effects. This
decreasing trend is the same as that seen in the Subnational electricity consumption data.
This trend is also seen across the building uses in the 2012-2019 period (Offices 21%,
Factories 20% and Shops 19%) and in 2020 compared to 2019 (Shops 31%, Offices 17%
and Factories 5%) mostly attributable to the effects of the pandemic.

15 DUKES, Table 4.2, Sectors: industrial, commercial, public admin and misc.

39

The overall median electricity consumption in non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED in 2020
(5,900 kWh) is broadly in line with what is seen in the Subnational electricity data (5,500
kWh a year).
Gas consumption16
Gas consumption shows (Figure 32) a similar trend to electricity consumption with evidence
of a slight decrease in median gas consumption between 2012 – 2019. This trend is also
seen in the Subnational gas consumption data. This slight decrease is seen across all
building uses. In line with the median electricity consumption pattern in 2020, median gas
consumption saw a considerable decrease in 2020 relative to 2019, with Arts, Community
and Leisure and Hospitality being the building uses with the biggest decreases (17% and
14% respectively). This follows falls in 2019 in the overall median consumption (8%), and
particularly hospitality (20%) and factories (7%)

Note, the median gas consumption in non-domestic buildings in ND-NEED (around 27,000
kWh) is much lower than is seen in the Subnational gas consumption data (around 145,000
kWh). This is because the Subnational data uses a consumption threshold of 73,200 kWh
to identify non-domestic buildings which means some low consuming non-domestic
buildings are not included and are instead classified as domestic. Consumption from these
buildings is captured in ND-NEED which leads to the lower median consumption values.

16 ND-NEED gas consumption years are not calendar years but run from mid-May to mid-May. For example,
data from 2020 is data from mid-May 2020 – mid-May 2021. A full historical breakdown of the time periods
used can be found in the Subnational consumption summary report on page 16. For more information see the
methodology note of the Subnational gas consumption statistics which provide the gas consumption figures in
ND-NEED.

40

Figure 32: Median gas consumption in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England
and Wales, 2012-2020.

How has median energy intensity in non-domestic buildings changed over time
(2012 – 2020)?
ND-NEED can also be used to track changes in median energy intensity over time.
Note, the floor area information in ND-NEED is only available for a single point in time (end
of March 2022). This means that any changes in the energy intensity time series are being
driven by changes in consumption alone, as the impact of any changes in floor area will not
be captured.
Electricity intensity
Figure 33 shows electricity intensity has fallen gradually between 2012 and 2019,
decreasing by 21% in this time period. This trend is seen across all building uses. Similar to
the decreases seen in overall electricity consumption, intensity fell considerably in 2020 in
comparison to 2019, with Arts, Community and Leisure and Hospitality seeing the largest
decreases (42% and 41% respectively).

41

Figure 33: Median electricity intensity in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in
England and Wales, 2012-2020.

Gas intensity17
Gas intensity shows the same pattern as electricity intensity, showing a gradual decrease
over time, falling by 11% across the 2012 to 2019 period. Again, this trend is seen for all
building uses. Just like the median electricity intensity in 2020, median gas intensity saw a
considerable decrease in that year, with Hospitality and Arts, Community and Leisure
experiencing the largest dips (18% and 16% respectively).

17 ND-NEED gas consumption years are not calendar years but run from mid-May to mid-May. For example,
data from 2020 is data from mid-May 2020 – mid-May 2021. A full historical breakdown of the time periods
used can be found in the Subnational consumption summary report on page 16. For more information see the
methodology note of the Subnational gas consumption statistics which provide the gas consumption figures in
ND-NEED.

42

Figure 34: Median gas intensity in ND-NEED non-domestic buildings in England and
Wales, 2012-2020.

Investigating consumption from buildings with low-consuming
non-domestic meters
ND-NEED can also provide information on the number of non-domestic buildings that have
‘domestic-like’ or low consuming electricity or gas meters. This can provide an indication of
the proportion of non-domestic buildings that share similar consumption characteristics as
domestic buildings, and how much they contribute to overall non-domestic consumption.
Electricity consumption
There are two key reasons why it is important to understand the number of non-domestic
buildings that have ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters:
1. In ND-NEED the non-domestic electricity meter population is defined as all meters
that are in ‘non-domestic’ profile classes (0, 3 – 8), and any meters in a ‘domestic-
like’ profile class (1,2) that can be matched to a non-domestic building address via
an address-matching algorithm. The ND-NEED address matching algorithm is
estimated to have a match rate of around 50% which means we know that we are
missing some ‘domestic-like’ meters from the ND-NEED population. Understanding
how many non-domestic buildings have ‘domestic-like’ meters will help us to
understand how many of these meters and what level of electricity consumption is
currently being missed in ND-NEED.
2. The profile class of an electricity meter is used by other electricity consumption
publications such as the Subnational electricity consumption publication to identify
non-domestic meters and so to estimate non-domestic building consumption.
Understanding how many non-domestic buildings have ‘domestic-like’ meters,
therefore, informs how much non-domestic consumption is being recorded as
domestic consumption in these publications.

43

Of the 855,000 non-domestic buildings that have been matched to their corresponding
electricity meter in the ND-NEED sample in 2020, 106,000 (12%) have ‘domestic-like’
meters (meters in profile classes 1 or 2). These may have previously been a domestic
property which have now been converted to non-domestic usage. These buildings with
‘domestic-like’ meters are responsible for 1 TWh of electricity consumption, 1% of electricity
consumption from buildings with profile class information.
This shows that while these ‘domestic-like’ meters are relatively common in the non-
domestic building stock, they make very little contribution to overall electricity consumption.
This means that although the ND-NEED meter population is likely missing a substantial
number of these ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters, this has little impact on the overall
electricity consumption reported. This will also be the case for other electricity consumption
publications that use profile class to define meters as ‘domestic’ or ‘non-domestic’.
Gas consumption
As gas meters do not have profile classes or similar which could indicate whether a meter is
located in a domestic or a non-domestic building, the metered consumption level is used
instead.
BEIS uses the gas industry standard “Annual Quantity” (AQ) cut-off point of 73.2 MWh to
determine whether a gas meter is classified as domestic or non-domestic. Meters that
consume <= 73.2 MWh are classified as domestic and meters that consume >73.2 MWh
are classified as non-domestic.
In ND-NEED this classification is refined by also matched low-consuming sites to non-
domestic buildings.

For gas consumption there are three key reasons why it is important to understand the
number of gas meters that are low-consuming/’domestic-like’:
1. In ND-NEED the non-domestic gas meter population is defined as all meters that
consume >73.2 MWh and any meters that consume <= 73.2 MWh that can be
matched to a non-domestic building address via an address-matching algorithm. The
ND-NEED address matching algorithm is estimated to have a match rate of around
50% which means we know that we are missing some ‘low-consuming’ meters from
the ND-NEED population. Understanding how many non-domestic buildings have
these ‘low consuming’ meters will help us to understand how many of these meters
and what level of gas consumption is currently being missed in ND-NEED.
2. The consumption level of a gas meter is used by other gas consumption publications
such as the Subnational gas consumption publication to identify non-domestic
meters and so to estimate non-domestic building consumption. Understanding how
many non-domestic buildings have these ‘low-consuming’ meters therefore informs
how much non-domestic consumption is being recorded as domestic consumption in
these publications.

44

3. Not all non-domestic buildings will have a gas meter – they may be in an area where
no gas connection is available, or they may be in an area where a gas connection is
available but choose not to be connected. Understanding how many buildings with
gas meters are currently being missed in ND-NEED will help us to estimate the
number of non-domestic buildings with no gas connection. This is important as there
are differences in decarbonisation policy for buildings that use gas and those that do
not.

In the ND-NEED sample there are 325,000 non-domestic buildings that have been matched
to their corresponding gas meter(s), where consumption is >1.1 kWh in 2020 (values of 1.1
kWh or less are placeholder values).
Of these 325,000 buildings, 257,000 buildings consumed <=73.2 MWh of gas in 2020. That
is 79% of all buildings with gas consumption information. These buildings are responsible
for 10 TWh of gas consumption, which is around 7% of gas consumption from the whole
non-domestic building stock.
This shows that ‘low-consuming’ gas meters are common in the non-domestic building
stock and have a non-negligible impact on the total gas consumption level. This means that
the ND-NEED meter population is potentially missing a substantial number of gas meters
and is slightly underestimating the total gas consumption from non-domestic buildings. This
will be even more true for other publications which just use the 73.2 MWh cut-off to identify
non-domestic consumption as they don’t use address matching to identify any lower
consuming sites.

Note, typical domestic gas consumption is much lower than 73.2 MWh. Ofgem estimates
that the medium domestic gas consumption is 12 MWh and high domestic gas consumption
is 17 MWh.

If 17 MWh a year is used as the cut-off for non-domestic consumption, then 132,000
buildings (41% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas sample) have ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption in 2020 (<17 MWh). These buildings are responsible for 2 TWh of
consumption.
If 12 MWh a year is used as the cut-off for non-domestic consumption, then 98,000
buildings (30% of buildings in the ND-NEED gas sample) have ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption in 2020 (<12 MWh). These buildings are responsible for 1 TWh of
consumption.
Overlap between buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and ‘domestic-like’ gas
meters
Another area we can investigate with the ND-NEED data is the extent to which the buildings
with ‘domestic-like’ electricity and gas meters overlap. For this analysis a gas meter will be
considered ‘domestic-like’ if it consumed less than Ofgem’s ‘high domestic consumption’
level of 17 MWh in 2020.

45

There are 106,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and
132,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption in the ND-NEED
sample.
As Figure 35 shows of the 132,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas
consumption, 28,000 also have ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters. That means that 21% of
the buildings with ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption also have ‘domestic-like’ electricity
meters.
Of the 106,000 non-domestic buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters, 40,000 have
gas consumption >1 kWh in 2020. As Figure 35 shows, of these 40,000 buildings, 28,000
have ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption. That means that 70% of the gas consuming buildings
with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters also have ‘domestic-like’ gas consumption.
Figure 35: Overlap between buildings with ‘domestic-like’ electricity meters and
‘domestic-like’ gas consumption meters.

46

Comparing the results in ND-NEED to comparable figures
from other publications
Consumption by building use
The electricity/gas consumption of non-domestic buildings broken down by building use is
available in other publications as well as in ND-NEED. Figures 36 and 37 compare the total
electricity and gas consumption figures for non-domestic buildings from three different
sources (ND-NEED, BEES18 and ECUK19).
In general, all three publications have similar electricity consumption figures by building
use. The figures in ECUK are generally higher than the figures in ND-NEED and BEES.
This is consistent with the fact that ECUK covers the whole of the UK, whereas the ND-
NEED and BEES just cover England and Wales. Methodological differences also account
for some of this difference.
The notable exception to this is Factories where consumption in BEES is much lower than
in ND-NEED (11 TWh in BEES compared to 40 TWh in ND-NEED). Factory consumption
figures are not available for ECUK. This difference can be explained by a difference in the
BEES and ND-NEED methodologies. The BEES consumption figure refers to all electricity
consumed by the building whereas the ND-NEED figures, as they are based on meter point
data, refer to all energy consumed by the building and any activity inside the building. In the
case of Factories, this means that industrial processes are not included in the BEES
consumption figures, but they are included in ND-NEED.
The gas consumption figures show a similar pattern to the electricity consumption figures.
For all sectors except Factories the consumption figures are relatively consistent across all
three publications. The ND-NEED consumption figure for Factories is much higher than the
BEES consumption figure for the reason stated above.

18 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. -
19 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5. -

47

Figure 36: Non-domestic building electricity consumption from this version of ND-
NEED for 2016, BEES for 2014-1520, and ECUK for 201621

Figure 37: Non-domestic building gas consumption from this version of ND-NEED for
2016, BEES for 2014-1522, and ECUK23 for 2016

20 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. BEES does not have figures for gas so non-electric consumption
is used.
21 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5.
22 BEES, Overarching report tables, Figure 3.1. BEES does not have figures for gas so non-electric consumption
is used.
23 ECUK, End uses data tables, Table U5.

48

Consumption over time
The total electricity/gas consumption from non-domestic buildings over time is also
available from other publications. Figures 38 and 39 compare the normalised change in
non-domestic electricity and gas consumption over time from three different sources (ND-
NEED, DUKES and Subnational).
The total non-domestic building consumption from these sources varies due to
methodological and definitional differences. Because of this normalised electricity/gas
consumption is presented so the trends over time can be easily compared.
Note for gas consumption both the subnational and ND-NEED gas year runs from mid-May
– mid-May, while the DUKES gas year is the calendar year Jan – Dec. This may cause
differences in the trends seen in these publications.

All three data sources show that non-domestic building electricity/gas consumption has
remained broadly stable between 2012 and 2019, with some evidence of a decrease for
electricity consumption in that period. However, 2020, according to all three datasets, saw a
considerable decrease in electricity consumption.
Figure 38: Non-domestic building normalised electricity consumption 2020 from ND-
NEED, Subnational24 and DUKES25.

24 Subnational electricity consumption data.
25 DUKES electricity consumption.. Industry, commercial and public administration used as a proxy for
nondomestic buildings. Electricity from the public distribution system.

49

Figure 39: Non-domestic building normalised gas consumption 2020 from ND-NEED,
Subnational26 and DUKES27.

26 Subnational gas consumption data..
27 DUKES gas consumption. Industry, commercial, public administration and misc used as a proxy for non-
domestic buildings. Total natural gas.

50

Main limitations of ND-NEED
The ND-NEED methodology is detailed in the accompanying Methodology note. However,
it should be noted that there are several aspects of ND-NEED’s methodology which
currently limit the insights that it can provide. Work is continually being undertaken to try to
address these.
Address matching
•
Incorrect matches between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Methodology Annex A).
o Due to difficulties with the address matching process used to match the
energy consumption data to AddressBase, some matches will not be
correct. It is estimated that around 5% of address matches are incorrect.
o If an energy meter data has been matched with the wrong address in
AddressBase it will then match to the wrong address in the ND-NEED
building stock. The consumption of that building with therefore be assigned
to the wrong building and business characteristics information, and
weighted accordingly, causing distortions in the data.
•
Around 50% match rate between the non-domestic buildings data and the energy
consumption data (see Methodology Annex A).
o Only 51% of non-domestic buildings in the ND-NEED building stock are
matched to electricity consumption data
o Only 20% are matched to gas consumption data (including non-buildings)
– however, this is expected to be lower than for electricity since not all
buildings use gas
•
The address matching algorithm uses addresses from January 2022. This means
that any old addresses that no longer exist in AddressBase (because the building
no longer exists or because the buildings address has changed e.g. if a new
business is occupying the building) will not be matched.
Weighting
• Because we cannot match all non-domestic buildings data with their energy
consumption data, weighting is needed to ensure the ND-NEED consumption figures
are representative of the population. There are several issues with this:
o Firstly, there is currently no information in ND-NEED about business size at
the population level. Business size is therefore not accounted for in the
weighting process.
o Secondly, although floor area is a factor in the weighting process, the
relatively high rates of missing floor area information in ND-NEED reduces the
efficacy of the floor area weighting.

• Applying energy weights to energy intensity figures:
o Energy intensity is influenced by both the energy consumption and the floor
area of a building, whereas the energy weight currently applied to energy

51

intensity figures is just influenced by a building’s energy consumption. This
means that differences in floor area between the buildings in the sample and
the population are not accounted for.

• Manual elements of the weighting process:
o The current ND-NEED weighting processes requires subjective decisions to
be made about when to merge adjacent cells when there are a low number of
buildings/meters in a particular cell and which cell to merge these ‘low value’
cells with. This means that two people running the weighing process would
calculate slightly different weights, and as a consequence slightly different
consumption values. This adds to the uncertainty surrounding all ND-NEED
consumption estimates.
Consumption: time-series
There are several reasons why consumption in the earlier years in the time series maybe
being underestimated in ND-NEED:

• The building stock figures used in ND-NEED, based on position of the 2017 NDR at
March 2022, do not include sites that have closed (or no longer attract business
rates, for example, if converted to domestic use). Because of this, any buildings that
do not exist in March 2022 will not be included in the ND-NEED stock and so cannot
be matched to energy consumption data.

• The energy consumption data used in this version of ND-NEED only includes meters
which are active in 2020. Because of this, any energy consumption from meters that
have now been deenergised e.g. because the building has been destroyed, is not
captured.

• The weighting process:
o The weighting process in ND-NEED is currently unable to account sufficiently
for the underestimation of consumption in earlier years. This makes it difficult
to create a robust time series from the ND-NEED. Energy consumption in
earlier years is likely to be underestimated, as energy consumed by
buildings/meters that no longer exist would not be captured.
o The manual element of the weighting process (see above) introduces
uncertainty into the consumption figures which can also have a small impact
on the time series trend presented. This means that it is not possible to
determine whether small changes in the time series trend are real changes in
consumption or caused by noise in the data.
Missing data
• Many buildings in ND-NEED are missing information on business/building size.
o The main consequences of the high level of missing data in ND-NEED is that
the consumption value associated with a particular business or building size

52

will likely be an underestimate, as some consumption from buildings that are
missing business/building size information will likely fall into that category.

Mixed building use
• The data received from the VOA (NDR/SMV) is at the hereditament level and must
be aggregated to the building level for use in ND-NEED. Where a building contains
multiple hereditaments of different building uses the building use of the hereditament
with the largest floor area is assigned to the building. However, it is possible that the
building use of the hereditament with the largest floor area does not best represent
the building use of the building as a whole. Improving the building use classification
for building uses with multiple hereditaments would improve the accuracy of ND-
NEED’s energy consumption and energy intensity figures by building use.
Business size
• The business size information in ND-NEED is the size of the business that occupies
the building, not the number of employees that work in the building. Because of this
a small branch of a national store will be a large business in ND-NEED, even if there
are only a few employees occupying the building.

• Additionally, similar to mixed building use, there are often multiple businesses
occupying – or registered to – a building, or even a premises. The method takes the
business with the best match rating to represent that building, which may not best
represent the building as a whole.
Scope
• The definition of a non-domestic building in ND-NEED is an area to review,
particularly with regards to excluded buildings, such as prisons; and included
buildings, such as those within the “Other” category – particularly electricity
hereditaments (which include some generating stations that may consume electricity
for non-building purposes).
.

53

Accompanying tables
The following tables are available on the department’s statistics website:

1
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by
building use, end of March 2022. (updated).
2
Number and total floor area of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by
floor area bands, end of March 2022. (updated).
3
Number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by year of construction,
end of March 2022. (updated).
4
Number of ND-NEED non-domestic buildings by business size, end of
March 2022. (updated).
5
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
use and building size, end of March 2022. (updated).
6
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
use and business size, end of March 2022. (updated).
7
ND-NEED non-domestic building number and floor area by building
size and business size, end of March 2022. (updated).
8
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use, 2012-2020. (updated).
9
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by building use, 2012 - 2020. (updated).
10
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building size, 2020. (updated).
11
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by building size, 2020. (updated).
12
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
business size, 2020. (updated).
13
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas intensity
by business size, 2020. (updated).
14
ND-NEED non-domestic building median electricity and gas
consumption by building use, 2012 - 2020. (updated).
15
Electric meter profile classes of buildings in the ND-NEED sample,
2020. (updated).
16
Gas meter consumption of buildings in the ND-NEED sample, 2020.
(updated).
17
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use and building size, 2018-2020. (updated).
18
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
building use and business size, 2018-2020. (updated).
19
ND-NEED non-domestic building electricity and gas consumption by
business size and building size, 2018-2020. (updated).
20
Added and removed buildings, March 2020 – March 2022 (New for ND-
NEED 2022)

54

Revisions policy
The BEIS statistical revisions policy sets out the revisions policy for these statistics, which
has been developed in accordance with the UK Statistics Authority Code of Practice for
Statistics.
User engagement
Users are encouraged to provide comments and feedback on how these statistics are used
and how well they meet user needs. Comments on any issues relating to this statistical
release are welcomed and should be sent to: xxx@xxx.xx.
The BEIS statement on statistical public engagement and data standards sets out the
department’s commitments on public engagement and data standards as outlined by the
Code of Practice for Statistics.
Contact
•
Responsible statistician: James Hemingway
•
Email: xxx@xxx.xx
•
Media enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx
•
Statistical enquiries: xx-xxxx-xxxx