Church buildings are a distinct part of the commercial building stock, but the available statistics do not describe one universal type of church. The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s 2018 Commercial Buildings Energy Consumption Survey (CBECS) groups churches with chapels, mosques, synagogues, and temples. Church of England and Church of Scotland figures use their own church-building scopes. The figures below therefore keep geography, measurement period, and source scope visible.
Contents
- How much energy religious worship buildings consume
- Fuel mix and end-use demand
- Size, age, and operating patterns
- Heating and cooling equipment
- Earlier U.S. benchmarks
- Measured energy use in individual churches
- Church-wide energy and carbon benchmarks
How much energy religious worship buildings consume
The 2018 CBECS recorded 193 trillion British thermal units (TBtu) of energy use by U.S. religious worship buildings. In that survey, the category represented 7% of U.S. commercial buildings and 6% of commercial floorspace. It accounted for 3% of commercial major-fuels consumption and 3% of major-fuels expenditures.
The same EIA profile reported mean energy intensity of 35.3 thousand Btu per square foot. The average religious worship building measured 12,500 square feet. These are category-level U.S. statistics for 2018, not measurements of a particular congregation or denomination.
The scale of the category matters when interpreting an individual church’s utility bill. A building can be small in floor area but still have substantial heating demand, while a larger building may have a different use schedule and equipment mix. The CBECS averages describe the full religious-worship category rather than a typical sanctuary alone.
Fuel mix and end-use demand
Natural gas and electricity were the two major reported energy sources in the 2018 U.S. CBECS profile. Religious worship buildings used 94 TBtu of natural gas and 91 TBtu of electricity. The figures are reported in TBtu and refer to the national category for that survey year.
Space heating was the dominant end use. It made up 45% of end-use energy consumption, and space-heating energy intensity was 17.8 thousand Btu per square foot. Every non-heating end-use category represented 11% or less of end-use consumption. Office equipment was especially small by intensity, at 0.3 thousand Btu per square foot.
An estimate published in 2023 by the Church of Scotland gives a different but complementary view for Church of England churches. In that cited estimate, heating accounted for 84% of church energy use, lighting for 6%, and other activities such as appliances for 10%. This is an estimate with its own church-building scope, not a directly comparable U.S. CBECS result. The much larger heating share in this estimate reinforces the importance of keeping the source and geography attached to each percentage.
| Measure | U.S. religious worship buildings | Church of England estimate cited by Church of Scotland |
|---|---|---|
| Heating or space heating | 45% of end-use energy, 2018 | 84% of energy use, estimate published 2023 |
| Lighting | Included among non-heating categories at 11% or less individually, 2018 | 6% of energy use, estimate published 2023 |
| Other activities or office equipment | Each non-heating category 11% or less; office equipment 0.3 thousand Btu/sq. ft., 2018 | Other activities such as appliances 10%, estimate published 2023 |
Size, age, and operating patterns
The 2018 U.S. religious-worship stock was weighted toward smaller buildings. Sixty-one percent were 10,000 square feet or smaller, while 38% were between 1,000 and 5,000 square feet. About 2% were larger than 50,000 square feet. These size bands help explain why a national average should not be treated as a floor-area rule for every church.
Age was also mixed. Buildings constructed from 1970 through 2018 made up 54% of the stock in the 2018 survey. Buildings constructed before 1946 made up 22%. The two figures describe different portions of the same surveyed stock and show that newer and much older buildings both form meaningful parts of the category.
An earlier U.S. Department of Energy assessment, covering 1999, reported that 93% of religious worship buildings were smaller than 25,000 square feet. That assessment also described religious worship buildings as being used primarily one or two days per week rather than consistently throughout the week. Because this is a 1999 assessment, it should be read as an earlier benchmark rather than as a current operating-pattern estimate.
The limited schedule described in that assessment is relevant to energy interpretation. A building may need to be heated or cooled for scheduled gatherings even when it is not occupied continuously. The supplied statistics do not quantify the relationship between operating hours and total consumption across the full building stock, so no such calculation is made here.
Heating and cooling equipment
The 2018 CBECS equipment figures show a mixture of systems in U.S. religious worship buildings. Furnaces served 41% of buildings, while packaged heating units served 37%. On the cooling side, packaged air conditioners served 51%, and residential-type central air conditioners served 29%.
These percentages describe equipment serving buildings in the survey category; they are not a claim that every building has only one system. They also should not be combined into a single total because heating and cooling equipment are separate measures and the categories may not be mutually exclusive.
An individual Church of England audit illustrates the kind of site detail that national percentages do not provide. The All Hallows church audit for 2016–2017 recorded one gas meter and two electricity meters. It reported one gas-fired condensing boiler at approximately 84% efficiency. Those details belong to the audited All Hallows site and are not a national church-building benchmark.
Earlier U.S. benchmarks
The DOE 2012 benchmark counted 187,000 religious worship buildings in its modeled small-to-medium commercial-building market. It assigned the category 2,708 million square feet of floorspace, estimated 0.09 quadrillion Btu of annual demand, and gave it an energy-use intensity of 34 thousand Btu per square foot.
The same 2012 benchmark reported that cooling represented 17% of HVAC demand. Pre-retrofit cooling HVAC demand was 0.015 quadrillion Btu. These are modeled benchmark figures for 2012, not readings from utility meters at identified churches.
The earlier DOE assessment for 1999 reported 110 TBtu of total energy use by religious worship buildings. It said the category represented 2% of total U.S. commercial energy consumption and about 5% of U.S. commercial floorspace. It also reported that only one commercial building category—vacant buildings—had lower energy intensity than religious worship in that assessment.
The 1999 and 2012 figures are useful as historical reference points, but they use different assessment years and source frameworks from the 2018 CBECS profile. They should not be presented as a continuous time series or used to infer an unsupported trend.
Measured energy use in individual churches
The All Hallows audit provides a detailed example from November 2015 through October 2016. The church used 121,494 kilowatt-hours per year in total: 112,709 kWh of gas and 8,785 kWh of electricity. Its 2017 energy certificate reported 743 square metres of gross floor area and 1,040 annual operating hours.
The audit breakdown assigned 93% of recorded energy consumption to gas and 7% to electricity. Within the electricity-use breakdown, lighting represented 80%. The report labels some breakdowns as approximations, so these figures describe the audit’s reported allocation rather than independently verified measurements.
A second Church of England audit, for Christ the Worker Church in Langley in 2019, recorded 6,333 kWh per year of electricity and 13,194 kWh per year of gas. The church had 149 square metres of gross internal floor area and was typically used for 19.5 hours per week.
The Langley audit estimated that heating represented 57% of energy use, hot water 10%, and other small-power appliances plus electric hall heating 25%. It reported electricity intensity of 42.44 kWh per square metre against a 20.00 kWh per square metre typical benchmark. Heating-fuel intensity was 88.42 kWh per square metre against a 150.00 kWh per square metre typical benchmark. Total energy intensity was 130.86 kWh per square metre against a 170.00 kWh per square metre typical benchmark.
| Audited church and period | Electricity | Gas | Area or operating measure |
|---|---|---|---|
| All Hallows, November 2015–October 2016 | 8,785 kWh/year | 112,709 kWh/year | 743 sq. m.; 1,040 operating hours |
| Christ the Worker, Langley, 2019 audit | 6,333 kWh/year | 13,194 kWh/year | 149 sq. m.; 19.5 hours/week typical use |
The two audits should not be treated as a controlled comparison. They cover different buildings, periods, floor areas, operating patterns, and reported audit structures. Their value is illustrative: they show how fuel totals, floor area, equipment, and schedules can sit behind a church’s overall energy figure.
Church-wide energy and carbon benchmarks
Church-wide figures add a broader organizational view. Using 2021 data, the Church of England estimated about 410,000 net tonnes of CO2 per year from around 32,000 buildings. This is an energy-related carbon estimate for the stated church-building scope, not a delivered-energy total.
In the first nationwide Energy Footprint Tool findings, nearly 5,000 Church of England churches submitted data. Those findings used 2020 data reported in 2021 and said that 5% of the churches sampled were already net-zero carbon. They reported a 12.5% reduction against the comparative 2006 study and estimated the church-building energy-use-only net footprint at about 185,000 tonnes of CO2e. One percent of churches had installed solar panels in those first findings.
The Church of England’s later Energy Footprint Tool cycle recorded information from more than 10,000 churches for 2024 data entered in 2025. That participation figure is not directly comparable with the nearly 5,000 submissions in the first nationwide findings without additional information about coverage and reporting conditions.
The Church of England’s net-zero target calls for at least a 90% reduction in building and work-travel emissions from baseline levels. The target, the 2021-data estimate, and the Energy Footprint Tool findings use the Church of England’s own organizational scope. They should therefore be kept separate from the U.S. CBECS category, which includes multiple kinds of religious worship buildings, and from the individual audited churches described above.