Estimating and Presenting Power Sector Fuel Use in EIA Publications and Analyses
November 18, 2002
Background
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) has comprehensively reviewed and revised how it collects, estimates, and reports fuel use for facilities producing electricity. The review addressed inconsistent reporting of the fuels used for electric power and changes in the electric power marketplace that have been inconsistently represented in various EIA survey forms and publications. For example:
In some cases fuel use by combined-heat-and-power (CHP) plants has been reported as industrial sector fuel use, while in other cases it has been reported as electric power sector fuel use.
Electricity generation and fuel consumption have been categorized and reported in several different ways, such as (1) utility only; (2) utility and independent power producers; or (3) utility, independent power producers, and CHP plants. The restructuring of the power industry is making some of these categories less meaningful.
The goal of EIA’s comprehensive review was to improve the quality and consistency of its electric power data throughout all data and analysis products. Because power facilities operate in all sectors of the economy (e.g., in commercial buildings, such as hospitals and college campuses, and industrial facilities, such as paper mills and refineries) and use many fuels, any change to electric power data affects data series in nearly all fuel areas and causes changes in a wide variety of EIA publications.