Energy consumption is often analysed as the outcome of people’s individual choices involving the use of technical devices. But it can also be seen as resource that underpins the energy consuming practices that people perform. The explicit study of practices, defined as clusters of activities, held together by meaning, material embodiment and coherent performance, and shared by a number of carriers across time a space, could improve our ability to model how the related energy consumption builds up and evolves. Practice theory has been successfully applied in the qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews and historical material including in the energy consumption field. However, the application of this theory to more structured and quantitative data remains limited. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how this theory can apply to the analysis of the flow of activities reported through the activity diaries forming national Time Use Surveys. This application would enable the use of these large scale representative population datasets for the modelling of the co-evolution of practices, technologies and infrastructures and consequent domestic energy consumption.