The study of historic energy transitions can help us understand and design an energy system that is both climate-friendly and improves access to clean, safe, and affordable energy for everyone. Energy historian Roger Fouquet provides such insights through his analysis of how energy was used for household heating in England from 1300 to 2000.1
The chart illustrates two trends: the price of fuel used for heating and the cost of the heating service itself, which refers to thermal comfort. The efficiency of energy conversion (fireplace, furnace, boiler) connects the fuel price to the service price.
In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, wood fuel was the primary source of household heating. However, the next two centuries saw a transition to coal. Since coal was about half the price of wood fuel, this shift caused a decline in the average fuel price. By the late twentieth century, natural gas had become the dominant fuel source.
Fouquet describes the trend in the price of heating services as follows: While coal was cheaper than wood, consumers had to adopt a less efficient technology—the fireplace, which replaced the hearth because it could better expel toxic coal smoke. This meant that from 1300 to 1800, the price of fuel fell more sharply than the cost of heating services. Still, this transition to coal and new technology allowed the price of heating services to decrease, something that wouldn’t have been possible if wood fuel had remained in use.
In the nineteenth century, the efficiency of heating equipment improved significantly with the widespread adoption of the Rumford fireplace. Efficiency gains accelerated further in the twentieth century with the introduction of clean and highly efficient natural gas and electric central heating boilers, driven by new air quality standards. However, electricity was five times more expensive than coal, and natural gas was twice the price of coal. As a result, average heating fuel prices tripled, and the price of heating services increased by about 50%, reflecting the cost of meeting air quality standards.
Despite the shift to more expensive energy sources, the price of household heating services in 2000 was nearly three times lower than in 1900. The quality of heating had improved, and local environmental standards were being met.
1 Fouquet, Roger. “Divergences in Long-Run Trends in the Prices of Energy and Energy Services.” Review of Environmental Economics and Policy 5, no. 2 (July 2011): 196–218. https://doi.org/10.1093/reep/rer008.