Australia’s Minister of Climate Change and Energy, Chris Bowen, recently announced a target to have electricity account for 35% of Final Energy by 2035. While the focus on electrification is widely supported as a critical step toward decarbonization, the specific metric of “Final Energy” is being criticized as misleading. Because electric technologies like heat pumps and electric vehicles are significantly more efficient than their fossil-fuel counterparts, they drastically reduce the total energy required to perform the same tasks. Consequently, using Final Energy as a benchmark obscures the actual progress of technology adoption and creates mathematically skewed targets.
The core issue, often called the “Final Energy Fallacy,” stems from how energy statistics are calculated. When a consumer switches from an internal combustion engine vehicle to an electric vehicle, the total Final Energy consumption drops by approximately 80% because the electric motor is far more efficient at converting energy into movement. Similarly, installing a heat pump with a high coefficient of performance reduces the energy needed for space heating. Because the denominator in the equation shrinks as efficiency improves, a country could achieve high levels of technology penetration while showing only modest growth in the Final Energy metric.
Norway serves as a prime example of this statistical disconnect. Despite having one of the world’s highest rates of electric vehicle adoption, with 96% of new car sales being electric in 2025, the electricity used by these vehicles accounts for only 14% of the transport sector’s Final Energy. This suggests that the 35% target is not only difficult to measure accurately but may also be mathematically unattainable for many nations, given that a large portion of the existing vehicle fleet is already on the road and will remain there for years.
To address this, experts are calling for a shift toward measuring “Useful Energy”—the actual energy required to perform a task, such as heating a home or moving a vehicle. Currently, there is a lack of authoritative, up-to-date data on Useful Energy, leaving policymakers to rely on metrics that fail to reflect the true impact of the energy transition. Advocates are urging international agencies, such as the International Energy Agency, to establish a standardized, transparent, and annual dataset for Useful Energy. Such data would allow leaders to set clear, achievable goals based on technology penetration rather than flawed energy accounting.