Energy account and energy balance

The statistics production has been revised considerably, and changes have been made during the past years to the data sources, methods and use of tools. This document describes the different components of the statistics production that underpin the publication of revised time series for 1990–2016 and preliminary figures for 2017.

The energy balance (EB) and the energy account (EA) are two statistics on the supply and use of energy products. The statistics have been published every year since 1976, and the time series have been relatively consistent since 1990. The energy account and energy balance are generally based on the same figures, but different principles and definitions are applied. EA follows the definitions of Norwegian economic activity in the national accounts (NA). All energy products that have been produced and are used commercially in the Norwegian economy are included, also consumption by Norwegian enterprises abroad. EB follows a territorial delimitation, and encompasses all flows of energy products on Norwegian soil, regardless of nationality.

A new production system was implemented in 2016–2017. The production system harmonises and conflates data from over 30 sources using calculations and data processing in an Oracle application developed at Statistics Norway for editing and estimation (ISEE). The revision of the production system was accompanied by an extensive review of methods. The data sources, methods and the technical solution that provide the basis for the publication in November 2018 are presented in this document.

This document begins by describing key concepts and variables that are used in the publication of EA/EB (Chapter 2). The data sources used in EA/EB are described next, as well as the calculations made outside the production system (Chapter 3). This is followed by a description of the technical solution (Chapter 4) and the calculations in the production system (Chapter 5). Finally, an account is given of the principles behind the balancing (Chapter 6) and of how the figures are disseminated (Chapter 7). The appendices include lists of key classifications in the publication and conversion factors.