International Energy Agency (IEA)

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is an intergovernmental energy body operating within the framework of the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)]. IRES does not profile the IEA institutionally; it references the agency functionally, by the roles it plays in the international energy-statistics system. This page gathers those roles as IRES presents them.

Convenor and chair of InterEnerStat

The IEA undertook an initiative in 2004 to organize a group of regional and specialized agencies active in energy statistics. That group — established in 2005 and known as InterEnerStat — acts as the Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics, reporting to the United Nations Statistical Commission [IRES, Ch. I, para. 1.10, footnote 8, PDF p. 16, 2018]. When the Commission supported the establishment and mandate of the Oslo Group and InterEnerStat at its thirty-seventh session (2006), InterEnerStat was convened by the IEA [IRES, Ch. I, para. 1.10, PDF p. 16, 2018]. The IEA chaired InterEnerStat, which — alongside the Oslo Group — was one of the two key content providers to IRES under the mandates given by the Commission; InterEnerStat focused on the harmonization of definitions of energy products and energy flows (see chapters III and V) [IRES, Ch. I, para. 1.32, PDF p. 21, 2018]. Mr. J. Y. Garnier of the IEA led InterEnerStat, and UNSD records its gratitude to him for that contribution [IRES, Acknowledgements, PDF p. 10, 2018].

Co-author of the Energy Statistics Manual

In 2004 the IEA and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (Eurostat) published their Energy Statistics Manual to assist member countries of the OECD and the EU in compiling their joint energy statistics questionnaire and to provide related guidance. IRES describes it as a welcome complement to the earlier United Nations publications, containing the most recent background information and clarifications of some difficult conceptual issues [IRES, Ch. I, para. 1.7, PDF p. 15, 2018]. Chapter IV notes that it incorporates and updates material from the IEA/Eurostat Energy Statistics Manual (Paris, 2004) as well as the 1987 UN units publication [IRES, Ch. IV, footnote 24, PDF p. 65, 2018]. The manual is also cited in the References as a joint IEA/Eurostat/OECD publication [IRES, References, PDF p. 167, 2018].

One of the two main international collectors of energy statistics

The IEA is one of the two main sources of international energy statistics, the other being UNSD. Both collect data from the national administrations of their member countries through questionnaires — thus collecting “official data” — and exchange data to ensure consistency and prevent duplication of effort by reporting countries. Where national data sources are unavailable or have gaps, the IPCC suggests using data from international organizations such as these [IRES, Ch. XI, para. 11.46, PDF p. 157, 2018]. Chapter V’s energy-flow material draws on the IEA Electricity Questionnaire reporting instruction as a worked example [IRES, Ch. V, Table 5.2 source note, PDF p. 75, 2018], and Members of the Oslo Group who contributed to IRES included two IEA staff, Mr. J. Y. Garnier and Ms. K. Treanton [IRES, Acknowledgements, PDF p. 10, 2018].

Work on energy-efficiency indicators

IRES notes a growing interest in energy-efficiency indicators and that work is being carried out — most notably by the IEA — to review current practices at the national level and provide guidance on concepts and methods. IRES recognizes the importance of these indicators but observes that many require more detail than the Chapter VI list of data items provides, so not all are presented in the recommendations [IRES, Ch. XI, para. 11.32, PDF p. 154, 2018].

confidence: medium — this page assembles the IEA’s roles exactly as IRES presents them (convenor/chair of InterEnerStat, co-author of the Energy Statistics Manual, joint international data collector with UNSD, and lead on energy-efficiency indicators). IRES gives no institutional profile of the agency — founding, mandate, governance, membership — so none is asserted here; the page can be expanded if a document treating the IEA directly enters the corpus. The bracketed [OECD] reference above is left unlinked pending a dedicated OECD entity page.

Related

• Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics — InterEnerStat, the working group the IEA convened and chaired
• United Nations Statistics Division — UNSD, the IEA’s counterpart as the other main international collector of energy statistics
• IRES Chapter I — Introduction — Chapter I, where the IEA’s convening of InterEnerStat and co-authorship of the Energy Statistics Manual are set out
• IRES Chapter XI — Uses of Basic Energy Statistics and Balances — Chapter XI, where the IEA is named as an international data source and as lead on energy-efficiency indicators