Introduction
Energy is an indispensable factor in all sorts of developments. Convenient and affordable energy services made available to all people and all activities in the country is what facilitated the development. In our social and economic activities, various energy is used integrally, without segregation of their source. However, information on energy is mostly made available through authorities for each energy product. Crude oil data in barrel, natural gas data in cubic feet, petroleum products data in ton, and electricity data in watt hour, cannot be easily compared. It is therefore essential that those information from authorities for petroleum, natural gas, electricity, coal, and biofuel, are integrated into one platform for analysis. An energy balance is one of the well-established forms of integrating various energy information into a single table. Based on the energy balance principle a national energy balance table, which integrates all energy supplied and consumed in Bangladesh, will be a useful instrument to understand how our social and economic activities are conducted.
What is an Energy Balance Table?
The energy balance table is the complete statistical accounting format for all energy products entering, exiting, transformed, and used. It can show a complete view on the energy situation of a country in a compact format. This becomes possible, because all forms of energy is expressed in a common unique calorific unit. It shows the relationship between the inputs to and the outputs via energy transformation processes. This allows the users to see the total amount of energy used and the relative contribution of each energy source, for the whole country and for each consumption sector. In addition, it allows users to compute the various energy transformation efficiencies.
The energy balance table of a country; a national energy balance table enables the analysis of the entire energy market and to monitor the impacts of energy policies. To this end, the national energy balance table is the key input for the policy makers’ impact assessments and policy decisions not only in energy policy but also in industrial policies, national security, among others.
Structure of an energy balance table
The energy balance table is a presentation of the basic supply and demand data for all fuels. The United Nations Statistics Department (UNSD) defines energy balance as “an accounting framework for the compilation and reconciliation of data on all energy products entering, exiting and used within the national territory of a given country during a reference period”. It is also stated that such a balance must necessarily express all forms of energy in a common accounting unit and show the relationship between the inputs to and the outputs from the energy transformation processes.
An energy balance table is presented as a matrix showing the relationships between energy products (represented in columns) and flows (represented in rows). Energy products include not only those indigenous to Egypt such as natural gas, crude oil hydro, PV, wind, biofuels but also those imported and exported. Flows, on the other hand, correspond to the origins and uses of energy products- from supply to final consumption.
Making an Energy Balance Table
- Create a long list of all data required (=data inventory).
- Collect data to fill out the data inventory (revise as required).
- Allocate data from the data inventory into the quantity matrix.
- Define an appropriate conversion factor.
- Create a calorific matrix (= the Energy Balance Table).
Examples of Energy Balance Tables
