Household Energy Demand, Prices, and Energy Mix Transformation in Central and Eastern Europe, 2013–2023

This article examines household energy demand, prices, and changes in energy-carrier mixes in Central and Eastern Europe during 2013–2023. Structural comparisons use a balanced 15-country panel; demand models use a balanced 12-country panel and energy consumption per private household calculated using annual Eurostat counts of private households. The proportional HDD adjustment is a sensitivity measure, not a validated end-use weather normalization. Country and year fixed-effects models are assessed with alternative specifications, household-series break controls, standardized magnitudes, and wild-cluster-bootstrap inference. Between 2013 and 2023, raw energy use per household decreases by 13.4% in Group A (seven countries) and 3.9% in the Group B demand subsample (five countries), whereas the HDD proxies do not decline. The joint climate-interaction test does not establish group differences in unadjusted energy use per household. The models do not establish the expected positive CDD associations with either electricity use per household or its energy-carrier share in Group B; nonsignificance does not establish the absence of a relationship. Associations with prices and annual generation-share levels are sample-, classification-, and specification-sensitive. Fixed-country structural checks, including an exchange of Hungary and Slovenia between groups, qualify convergence claims. Under the baseline grouping, Slovenia and Albania have Florence indices above their respective group means in all eleven years; this is descriptive evidence. Paired country-level comparisons do not establish higher mean annual carrier turnover in 2021–2023 than in 2014–2020. Price levels and annual changes document a heterogeneous shock; a rise in volatility is not formally tested. Affordability, comfort, and changes in resilience are not directly measured; the generation-share regressions do not determine whether renewables improve resilience. The framework informs policy appraisal without identifying household mechanisms or intervention effects.