From Energy Questionnaire to Energy Accounts and Balances and back

1
From Energy Questionnaire to Energy Accounts and
Balances and back

• A. Gritsevskyi
• Planning and Economic Studies Section
• International Atomic Energy Agency
• Oslo City Group, New Delhi Meeting
• February 5th, 2007

2
Difficulties and Challenges

• Near exponential growth of needs
• Lack of data, lack of data details or lack of
  specific data common for most developing
  countries
• Lack of understanding and analytical abilities
• Communication and other gaps between
  statisticians, policy makers, researchers and
  ministries
• Rapidly growing attentions and willingness to
  deal with environmental issues vs. poor data
  collection/understanding
• Training

3
Step 1 From National Data to common Energy
Questionnaire

• From local energy statistical office point of
  view
• Tedious time consuming task with easy to
  introduce mistakes
• Definitions that rarely 1-to-1 correspond to
  national practices
• Data quality and difficulties in providing
  explanation and/or supporting information
• No real rewards/benefits of doing so.

4
Step 1 (continue) From National Data to common
Energy Questionnaire

• From international statistical authorities
  point of view
• Tedious time consuming task to process with easy
  to introduce mistakes
• Difficulties in revising historical data and
  capture meta information
• Some mistakes/problems become apparent only
  when attempt to create Balances is performed.

5
Step 2 Energy Questionnaire to Accounts and
Balances

• From local energy statistical office point of
  view
• Magic with little to none understanding
• Limited control and feedback ? reduced value.
• From international statistical authorities
  point of view
• Difficult that requires a lot of personal
  experience, strong analytical skills and
  creativity.

6
What could be done to make it easier ?

• Computer based Tool that
• compatible with current arrangements
• flexible enough to accommodate any changes
  (definitions, links between energy levels, main
  UNDESA databases restructuring, OS platforms,
  security, open-ended, etc.)
• strait forward and stable with minimum support
  required (no advanced IT knowledge assumed)
• Incorporated consistency checks, metadata
  collection
• Producing first order approximation of Balances
• Easy to send easy to fill (at extend possible)
  easy to collect and process

7
Energy Balances Studio, UNSD-IAEA project

• Based on Sun Java (v.1.5 or later), OS
  independent, no extra tools required (no need for
  even Excel like tool)
• Minimal hardware requirements
• Can read/write UN Questionnaire as it is
• Can easily communicate with information stored
  into UN datasets
• open logic could be readjusted to new
  definitions and balances matrix with no
  programming necessary
• support for any language could be incorporated
  with no re-programming (so far French and
  Spanish, some tests in Russian)
• Data checks, metadata and complimentary
  information collection

8
and Back

• Ability do check historical data and
  revise/modify/correct it
• Countries and regions cross-comparisons
• Generating reports, etc.
• Indicators
• WEB ready (if necessary)