The objective of this study is in the assessment of residential sectors use of energy through a benchmarking methodology taking the years of consumption as the decision unit. It further assesses the effect of each of the independent variables responsible for each year’s residential energy consumption known as sensitivity analysis. To achieve the following objectives, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) was employed. The study considered the United States residential sector data from 1984 to 2010, with residential population, gross domestic product, household size, median household income, cost of residential electricity, cost of residential natural gas and cost of residential heating oil as inputs while the energy consumed was the output. The study found out that the year 1996 proved the most efficient while gross domestic product proved important in the way energy needs to be consumed efficiently.

Keywords: assessment; benchmarking; data envelopment analysis; residential sector; energy consumed