The present study develops three forms of equations to better analyze energy use and make future projections based on genetic algorithm (GA) notion, and examines the effect of the design parameters on the energy utilization values. The models developed in the quadratic form are applied to Turkey, which is selected as an application country. Turkey's future residential energy output demand is estimated based on GDP, population, import, export, house production, cement production and basic house appliances consumption figures. Among these models, the so-called GA-RWTVR model, which uses residential housing production, house appliances sales of washing machine, television, vacuum cleaner and refrigerator as design parameters/indicators, was found to provide the best fit solution to the observed data. It may be concluded that the models proposed can be used as an alternative solution and estimation techniques to available estimation techniques in predicting the future energy utilization values of countries. (C) 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.