Other Energy Producers

Other energy producers are economic units — including households — that choose, or are forced by circumstance, to produce energy for their own consumption and/or to supply energy to other units, but for which energy production is not their principal activity. These units engage in the production, transformation and transmission/distribution of energy as a secondary and/or ancillary activity: the “energy” output generated, measured by value added, does not exceed that of the unit’s principal activity. Where the energy activity is ancillary, it is carried out to support the unit’s principal and secondary activity [IRES, Ch. V, para. 5.75, PDF p. 77, 2018].

This is the mirror image of Energy Industries, which is defined by the opposite condition — energy production, transformation or distribution being the principal activity.

Examples

• Geographically remote industries with no access to electricity unless they produce it themselves.
• Iron and steel works that produce their own coke and electricity, using the coke and the heat from it for their own production purposes.
• Sugar mills, which nearly always burn the bagasse they produce to generate steam, process heat and electricity.
• An enterprise whose primary activity is producing animal products (e.g. raising and breeding pigs, sheep) that uses animal waste as fuel in a biogas system to generate electricity for its own use or for local sale.
• Industrial establishments and commercial organizations with backup electricity-generating equipment for use during public-supply failures (which they might even sell to other consumers or to the public supply system).
• Households using solar panels to generate electricity for their own use, and sometimes for sale to third parties.

[IRES, Ch. V, para. 5.76, PDF p. 78, 2018]

Data collection recommendation

Collecting data on energy production by other energy producers can be challenging. It is nonetheless recommended that, where such producers account for a significant part of total energy production, countries make efforts to obtain detailed data from them and incorporate it into their official energy statistics, including energy balances. The energy used in these processes should be recorded under transformation and energy industries own use. Where the production of energy by non-energy industries is small (as determined by the responsible national agency), countries might limit data collection from such industries to appropriate aggregates only, or prepare estimates as necessary [IRES, Ch. V, para. 5.77, PDF p. 78, 2018] — recommendations tracker row V/5.77.

Related

• IRES Chapter V — Energy Flows — the chapter digest this page supports
• Energy Industries — the mirror-image group, defined by energy production/transformation/distribution being the principal (not secondary/ancillary) activity
• Energy Industries Own Use — where other energy producers’ own use of energy is recorded
• Production — production by other energy producers is still production, just by a different class of unit
• Transformation — where other energy producers' transformation activity is recorded, under the most similar energy industry category