Statistical Clearing House § ABARE Fuel and Electricity Survey

ABARE Fuel and Electricity Survey, Financial Year 2001/2002

Contents

B1 Purpose of survey
B2 Objectives
B3 Timetable

B. User Requirements, Survey Objectives, and Budget

Why do you need to conduct a survey? (B1)
Note. Refers to the underlying information requirements that the survey is intended to address. For example, what problems the agency is trying to solve? What decisions need to be made? What specific policies or actions are being determined or assessed? Should detail who requires the information. Survey objectives should be included in "B2" below.
The Australian energy sector is experiencing rapid change, with this rapid change high quality and timely information about the past, present and future is critical to decision makers in both the private and government sectors. The areas of interest include energy market reform, energy efficiency, environmental policies such as climate change, energy security issues and information on which medium to long term energy planning can be based.

The statistical information to be collected by the Fuel and Electricity Survey (FES) is required by Commonwealth and State governments, the energy industry, academics and industry consultants. In addition, Australia has commitments to provide detailed energy supply and demand information to international organisations such as the International Energy Agency (IEA), the World Energy Council (WEC) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, as well as providing input into Australia's National Greenhouse Gas Inventory.

More recently there has been an increased demand for energy end-use data in the commercial, residential, transport, energy renewables and energy cogeneration sectors. The FES aims to satisfy this identified demand by undertaking the following:

surveying the largest consumers and producers of energy;
supplying the Australian and New Zealand Minerals and Energy Council (ANZMEC) with the survey results on the Australian industrial sector for incorporation into the National Energy End-Use Database; and
by publishing the statistical data collected.

The FES statistical information will be published by ABARE in a comprehensive set of statistical tables at the completion of the survey, which addresses the fundamental need for historical and forecast information on the amount of energy consumed and produced in Australia, by industry, by fuel type and by State. A consistent set of data is not available from any other source in Australia. Consumption and production data for some fuel types is available from administrative sources, predominantly fuel suppliers, however, this information lacks the required end-use information required by clients (by fuel, by industry, by equipment type and in some instances by region). The FES is focused on collecting this detailed end-use data as well as less detailed consumption and production data where it is not available from other sources.

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B2 Objectives

How will the survey outputs meet the needs specified in B1? (B2)
Note. Should include a brief overview of the main topics the survey will cover. If applicable, provides details of any constraints including: fixed costs, fixed sample size, fixed accuracy (eg target RSEs, Confidence Intervals), etc.

The FES will collect data on the amount of energy consumed and produced for the proceeding three fiscal years (1998-99 to 2000-01) and forecasted needs on an annual basis out to 2005-06. This data is collected on a site by site (operational entity) basis and requires the information by fuel, by industry and by equipment type. The information is collected for both consumption and production data, but where possible if data is collected elsewhere, duplication is avoided.

The FES is designed to provide a reliable and accurate data set on energy consumption and production in Australia, which will meet the needs of clients for detailed end-use information. The statistical data to be published may include approximately 50 fuel, 30 industry (at 2 or 3 digit ANZSIC level, depending on the industry) and 15 equipment types.

There are a number of constraints applicable to the FES. These constraints include:

a fixed budget (including funding arrangements with DISR for the survey);
a maximum sample size of approximately 5,000; and
completion of the survey by 30 June 2002, including publication of historical data and formal reporting to DISR.

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B3 Timetable

What is the timetable for the survey? (B3)
Note. Should include: testing, the date questionnaires are printed or finalised, the date data collection commences, the date data collection finishes, and when results will be available. SCH approval for the survey is to be obtained before data collection commences.

The FES is conducted on a biennial basis over a 12-month period between July and June, commencing in an odd year (eg. 2001) and finishing in an even year (eg. 2002).

The historical data collected from the survey will be published in late June 2002, with the release of the forecast statistics to coincide with the ABARE Outlook conference, held in early March 2003.

The provisional timetable for the key milestones of the FES is as follows:

Design of survey sample	July - August 2001
Conduct FES workshop	July 2001
Redevelopment of FES database	July - November 2001
Provision of sample contact list by ABS	August 2001
Mail out of survey contact detail request form	August 2001
Redesign and printing of survey forms	September - October 2001
Mail out of survey forms	November 2001
Collection and processing of forms	November - January 2002
Conduct follow-up of survey non-respondents	January 2002
Analysis of data	February - June 2002
Conduct FES database quality assessment	February 2002
Conduct FES response rate assessment	February 2002
Conduct industry and departmental consultations	March - June 2002
Complete final report containing historical data	June 2002
Present forecast report at Outlook conference	March 2003

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