PNNL

Abstract

In December, 2002, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Annual Energy Review, 2001 (hereafter AER01; the document is available at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/contents.html), with extensive revisions to both the electricity data and the categories under which the data are reported. The basics of these revisions are explained in Appendix H of AER01, "Estimating and Presenting Power Sector Fuel Use in EIA Publications and Analyses" (which can be downloaded from the "Appendices and Glossary" link. This revision was timely and eliminated the growing "adjustments" that reconciled the discrepancy between the sum of fuels consumed by the four end-use sectors and the electricity sector with the total energy consumed by the four end-use sectors (i.e., with electricity losses allocated back to the four end-use sectors). This adjustment jumped from almost nothing in 1988 to 128 trillion Btu (TBtu) in 1989 and grew to a half-quadrillion British thermal unit (quad) by 1998. In 1999 it was -3.2 quad and in 2000, as reported in the AER 2000, it was -4.3 quad. After revisions, the adjustment nearly disappears, with the largest adjustment over the period 1989-2001 at 10 trillion Btu (TBtu). Even with these revisions, however, there are still some very strange numbers. This paper explains these revisions and accounting techniques, and tries to reconcile some of the data via an appeal to the detailed Independent Power Producer survey, EIA Form 860b, for 1998 and 1999.