Statistical Service of Cyprus (CYSTAT)

Environment Statistics Unit

Michail Karaoli Str., 1444 Nicosia, Cyprus

Physical energy flow accounts (PEFA) is one module of the European environmental-economic accounts - Regulation (EU) 691/2011 Annex VI. PEFA record the flows of energy (in terajoules) from the environment to the economy (natural inputs), within the economy (products), and from the economy back to the environment (residuals), using the accounting framework of physical supply and use tables.

PEFA provide information on energy flows arranged in a way fully compatible with concepts, principles, and classifications of national accounts – thus enabling integrated analyses of environmental, energy and economic issues e.g. through environmental-economic modelling. PEFA complement the traditional energy statistics, balances and derived indicators which are the main reference data source for EU energy policies.

This national metadata refers to the PEFA questionnaire delivered to Eurostat: data on supply (table A), use (table B), transformation use (table B1), end use (table B2) and emission-relevant use (table C), key indicators of physical energy flow accounts by NACE Rev. 2 activity (table D), and physical energy flow accounts totals bridging to energy balances totals (table E).

The PEFA questionnaire is available on Eurostat's website: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/environment/methodology

Physical energy flow accounts (PEFA) datasets have the following dimensions:

1. Supply and use tables (STK_FLOW): the elements of this dimension are the five tables detailing energy supply (questionnaire table A) and use; the total energy use (table B) is the sum of transformation use (table B1) and end use (table B2), and a certain part of it is emission relevant (table C).
2. Energy product (PROD_NRG): (not relevant for questionnaire table D and E) The flows of energy recorded in PEFA are broadly grouped into natural energy inputs (flows from environment to economy), energy products (flows within economy), and energy residuals (flows from economy to environment mainly). Each of these generic groups is further broken down. In total this dimension distinguishes 31 items which are regulated in Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2016/172.
3. Classification of economic activities - NACE Rev.2 (NACE_R2): (not relevant for questionnaire table E) The supply and use of energy flows is broken down by NACE classification of economic activities. The aggregation level used is A*64 (i.e. 64 branches), fully compatible with ESA supply and use tables. Furthermore, this dimension includes private households, accumulation (e.g. product inventories), the rest of the world economy for imports and exports, and the environment.
4. Indicators (INDIC_PEFA): (only relevant for questionnaire tables D and E): Various key indicators that can be derived from the physical supply and use tables and so-called 'bridging-items' which present the various elements explaining the differences between the national totals as reported by PEFA vis-a-vis the national totals as reported by Eurostat's energy balances.
5. Geopolitical entity (GEO): EU Member States, EFTA countries, candidate countries, and potential candidates. 
6. Period of time (TIME): Energy flow data are annual.
7. Unit (UNIT): Energy flows are reported in Terajoules.

The data set covers the entire national economy as defined in national accounts (ESA 2010, paragraph 2.04), as well as its physical relation to economies in the rest of the world and the environment.

Physical energy flow accounts (PEFA) are conceptually rooted in the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) which is an international statistical standard. The SEEA central framework provides standard concepts, definitions, classifications, accounting rules and tables for the provision of statistics on the environment and its relationship with the economy.
PEFA constitute satellite accounts to the National Accounts (NA). Hence, the statistical concepts and definitions of PEFA are derived from those of NA.
As far as applicable PEFA is also compliant with the statistical concepts and definitions internationally established for energy statistics: the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES).
Three concepts are essential to PEFA:
1) The concept of three generic types of energy flows as established in SEEA, namely:
a) natural energy inputs: flows from the natural environment into the economy such as fossil energy carriers in solid, liquid and gaseous form, biomass, solar radiation, kinetic energy in form of hydro and wind, geothermal heat etc.;
b) energy products: output flows from production processes as defined in national accounts (ESA); typically products produced by extractive industries, refineries, power plants etc.;
c) energy residuals: mainly energy in form of dissipative heat arising from the end use of energy products, flowing from the economy into the natural environment.
2) The accounting framework of (physical) supply and use tables as established in NA and SEEA;
3) The residence principle as established in NA and SEEA, i.e. PEFA records energy flows related to resident unit's activities, regardless where those occur geographically.

Data refer to activities of resident economic units in the sense of SEEA CF 2012 and national accounts (ESA), including households.

The national economy is as defined in SEEA CF 2012 and national accounts (ESA); i.e. all economic activities undertaken by resident units (see ESA 2010, paragraph 2.04). 

A unit is said to be a resident unit of a country when it has a centre of economic interest in the economic territory of that country, that is, when it engages for an extended period (1 year or more) in economic activities in that territory.

The data cover the years 2014 to 2021.

Not applicable.

The unit of measure is terajoule (TJ).

The data refer to the calendar year.

PEFA are legally covered by Regulation (EU) No. 691/2011 on European environmental economic accounts as amended by Regulation (EU) No. 538/2014. EEEA currently include six modules (air emissions accounts, environmentally related taxes by economic activity, economy-wide material flow accounts, environmental protection expenditure accounts, environmental goods and services sector accounts, and physical energy flow accounts).

Not applicable.

Official statistics are released in accordance with the confidentiality provisions laid down in the following:

• Official Statistics Law of 2021 (Law No. 25(I)/2021) (especially Article 16 on statistical confidentiality).
• Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 March 2009 on European statistics and its later amendment (especially Chapter 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• European Statistics Code of Practice (especially Principle 5 on statistical confidentiality).
• CYSTAT's Guidelines for the Protection of Confidential Data

Under the provisions of the Official Statistics Law, all the information collected is treated as confidential and is used solely for statistical purposes. No data for any individual enterprise is published or disclosed to either public bodies or private individuals.

No data is considered confidential at the level published.  The treatment of confidential data is regulated by CYSTAT's Guidelines for the Protection of Confidential Data.

There is no schedule of release dates related to PEFA data on the national website.  Nevertheless, national data are disseminated annually by Eurostat on its database.

Not applicable yet.

Not applicable.

Data are disseminated annually.

There are no news releases set up on the national website. However, there is a related news release published by Eurostat on an annual basis around March.

PEFA data are not yet published on the national website. Please find below a related publication of Eurostat.

There are no national databases related to PEFA. Please find below related online databases of Eurostat.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Not applicable

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

See Article 11 of the Official Statistics Law of 2021 (Law No. 25(I)/2021)
See Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics

The quality of statistics in CYSTAT is managed in the framework of the European Statistics Code of Practice which sets the standards for developing, producing and disseminating European Statistics as well as the ESS Quality Assurance Framework (QAF). CYSTAT endorses the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System. In addition, CYSTAT is guided by the requirements provided for in Article 11 of the Official Statistics Law No. 25(I) of 2021 as well as Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, which sets out the quality criteria to be applied in the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

CYSTAT follows the guidelines provided in Eurostat's manual for physical energy flow accounts, which set standards for the compilation of the data.

The quality of statistics is assessed according to five quality criteria: relevance, accuracy, timeliness and punctuality,accessibility and clarity, coherence and comparability. CYSTAT endorses the Quality Declaration of the European Statistical System. In addition, CYSTAT is guided by the requirements provided for in Article 11 of the Official Statistics Law of 2021 (Law No. 25(I)/2021) as well as Article 12 of Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 on European statistics, which sets out the quality criteria to be applied in the development, production and dissemination of European statistics.

Data on PEFA are an important policy instrument at EU level. Yet, there have not been any clear indications which could help determine the degree of policy need for this data at the national level.

Not applicable.

The PEFA questionnaires of the reference years 2014-2021, which are mandatory under Regulation (EU) No 691/2011 are duly completed.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

CYSTAT follows the guidelines provided in Eurostat's PEFA Manual, which sets standard methods for the compilation of the data. Revisions are made on auxiliary information relating to energy and transport data and advancements are always pursued on allocation methods. Data are carefully examined after collection and compared to previous years' data collections. The number of errors is minimised by careful examination of the processing methods. Furthermore, plausible errors are traced by comparing annual changes on the data. The overall procedure is reviewed and any doubtful or non best-practice methods are re-assessed. Surveys for producing detailed energy use data for households are not available on an annual basis so improvements and revisions are expected every few years.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

Not applicable to statistical accounts.

The first and final estimates for reference year N are available at N+21 months. However, improvements in compilation processes may be applied later on that could affect the data of any of the years of the time series.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Eurostat's deadlines for disseminating the data are respected. PEFA are disseminated to Eurostat by the end of September each year.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Data on PEFA are compiled according to harmonised guidelines provided by Eurostat and hence are comparable across EU Member States reporting to Eurostat. Application of the PEFA Builder tool also ensures comparability to a certain extent.

Not applicable.

Please see the table in 15.2.1.1. in case there are any breaks in series.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Please use below table for explaining b)-flags (breaks in time series):

PEFA is considered as adequately but not entirely coherent with ESA SUT tables and AEA. For details please see 15.3.2, 15.3.3, 18.1.7, 18.5.5

Not applicable; reported PEFA data are only annual.

There is a certain consistency level between ESA SUT and PEFA.  However, PEFA addresses a much more specific scope and there is room for greater flexibility and accuracy. For example, the ESA SUT does not distinguish the petroleum products in all that detail which is required in PEFA. Maintaining a degree of deviation in PEFA from SUT datasets, is necessary in order to assure the accuracy needed to address  PEFA's scope as an individual module.  The objective is to channel detailed information from PEFA into the ESA supply table so that the best possible convergence with the ESA tables is achieved.

AEA data follow the residence principle just like the National Accounts. Data from the national accounts are used to estimate the non-residents' road transport share. Please see section 18.1.7 for more details.

Yes, up to a certain level the distribution of some of the auxiliary fuel data used for the allocation to NACE divisions is common for both modules. Subsequently, additional information is incorporated to differentiate the allocation for PEFA by energy product. AEA is mostly based on the inventory-first approach (not energy-first) which means that it is based on the categorical breakup of the emission inventories. Nevertheless, many of the main data sources used to calculate the emission inventories and most of  the auxiliary data sources used for the allocation to NACE divisions are common with the ones used to compile PEFA and therefore the two modules maintain a satisfactory level of consistency.

Yes since the data are adjusted to the residence principle. Please see 18.1.7 for further details.

An annual cross-domain plausibility check is performed between the PEFA data on air transport versus OECD's data on CO2-emissions of air transport. The comparison reveals a significant improvement in the convergence of the two sources from 2018 to 2021. 

Up to 2018, the information provided by ICAO related to scheduled flights, while from 2019 onwards, it relates to flights actually taking place, based on information from the Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system. Furthermore, this system allows measurement of the actual distance covered by aircraft, which depends on airspace constraints and meteorological conditions when flights take place. Until 2018, only the (great-circle) distance between origin and destination airports was taken into account, which resulted in great discrepancies.

As the PEFA builder tool is used to populate the PEFA tables, cross-domain correspondence is ensured by the procedures incorporated in the tool.

No cross-domain plausibility checks are performed between PEFA and MFA.

Eurostat's validation procedures should ensure full internal consistency, at least for the mandatory data points.

The cost and burden for the whole process of compiling the PEFA 3-year series each year is about 450 person/hours. Specifically, it's about 3 months of work for one person who is also attending to other work tasks.

There is a formal revision policy at Cystat. Cystat publishes its Revision Policy on its website, describing the general rules and principles governing the procedure of revising data published by Cystat.

The policy is based on the guidelines of the European Statistical System (ESS) also taking into account the Quality Assurance Framework of the ESS and the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Whenever there are any methodological improvements, revisions in Energy Statistics or auxiliary data, PEFA Builder updates, these are incorporated in the compilation procedure so as to improve the three-year mandatory PEFA data by the following dissemination to Eurostat.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Data sources used to produce physical energy flow accounts are described in the following sub-concepts.

1) The Annual Eurostat Energy Questionnaires

2) Ad-hoc information for each energy flow collected from colleagues in the Energy Statistics Unit. 

1) The Annual Eurostat Energy Questionnaires

2) Ad-hoc information for each energy flow collected from colleagues in the Energy Statistics Unit.

1) The Annual Eurostat Energy Questionnaires

2) Ad-hoc information for each energy flow collected from colleagues in the Energy Statistics Unit. 

1) The Annual Eurostat Energy Questionnaires

2) Ad-hoc information for each energy flow collected from colleagues in the Energy Statistics Unit. 

The main auxiliary data which are used to develop "distribution keys" are:

(1) Fuel consumption by type of fuel in the Industry NACE activities B, C, D, E at 2-digit level, as recorded by CYSTAT (in quantity). These are data deriving from a specific sample survey.
(2) Fuel consumption and lubricants use of vehicles by NACE activities and by households, as recorded by CYSTAT (in value). These are data from the HBS and the annual SBS surveys.
(3) Consumption of fuel for heating or production purposes by NACE activities, as recorded by CYSTAT (in value). These are data from the annual SBS surveys.
(4) Sales of petroleum products by end-user, as recorded by CYSTAT (in quantity).
(5) Fuel prices by type of fuel.

Yes, the PEFA builder was used both for populating the PEFA Tables and for control.

Regarding road transport, the National Accounts Division provides information on the share of non-residents, which is included in the private final consumption of CPA C19.2 (refined petroleum products) in the Supply-Use Tables (SUT). This figure is then used to estimate the non-residents’ share of road transport fuels consumed. Note that the road transport fuel used by non-residents on the territory is rather small and is mainly used by tourists, as Cyprus is an island-nation. The residents’ fuel used abroad is even smaller and is currently assumed to be negligible.

Regarding air and maritime transport, in order to estimate the energy use by non-residents, specific information is used for each type of fuel. Specifically about shipping, data for the supplies of resident ship operators from Cyprus (fuel oil, diesel oil, lubricants) are collected. Then, the difference from the "International Marine Bunkers" oil recorded in the Energy Annual Questionnaires, is the quantity supplied to non-residents. Similarly, the consumption of jet kerosene by non-residents is found by deducting the total amount supplied to a small number of resident entities from the total "International Aviation" fuel supplied in Cyprus. On the other hand, we also collect data from the resident airlines and the resident ship operators about their supplies from the rest of the world and these are added to the PEFA dataset.

Finally, there are some small amounts of diesel, LPG, electricity, kerosene supplied in Cyprus and used by non-residents for purposes other than road, air and maritime transport. These are bridged in the land transport cell or in the "other adjustments" cell accordingly.

Data are collected annually. Note that all primary data are available for collection at most 12 months after the end of the reference year, while the necessary auxiliary information for the allocation to the economic activities is available around 20 months after the end of the reference year.

 The primary data information is usually received by email from administrative sources and reminders are sent where necessary.

Data are carefully examined after collection and compared to previous years' data collections. If the quality of data is unsatisfactory, the providers of the data are contacted and revised data are submitted, where necessary. Otherwise, the part of the data which is of doubtful quality is identified and estimations are made to replace them, based on the rest of the data, on previous years' figures or other auxiliary sources.

Please see subsections below for details.

Not applicable.

The "Main activity producers" are all assigned to NACE D35, automatically by the PEFA Builder. However, this practice is under examination as there are cases which could be assigned elsewhere. For example, "main activity producer CHP plants" which use biogas could be assigned to NACE 37-39. On the other hand, "autoproducer electricity" and "autoproducer CHP plants" are assigned to various NACE divisions accordingly, based on detailed information collected for the purposes of energy statistics.

The objective is to achieve the best possible convergence with the ESA tables in the years to come. Nevertheless, PEFA addresses a much more specific scope, compared to the ESA, so there is room for greater flexibility and accuracy to be achieved. The target will be to then channel this information into the ESA supply table.

The method used for the allocation of road transport energy mainly involves establishing a distribution key with the following auxiliary fuel data::
(1) Vehicle fuel consumption by type of fuel in the Industry NACE activities B, C, D, E at 2-digit level, as recorded by CYSTAT (in quantity). These are data deriving from a specific sample survey.
(2) Vehicle fuel consumption and lubricants use by NACE activities and by households, as recorded by CYSTAT (in value). These are data from the HBS and the annual SBS surveys.
(3) Sales of petroleum products by end-user, as recorded by CYSTAT (in quantity).
(4) Fuel prices by type of fuel.

The above data sources were selected following an exercise of comparing the Annual Energy Questionnaires data with other CYSTAT data sources. Specifically, the objective was to combine these sources in the optimal way possible in order to be able to split road diesel and gasoline quantities, firstly between households and the economy and secondly to further split the latter to the various economic activities.   

The method used for the allocation of energy use to detailed service industries, mainly involves establishing a distribution key with the following auxiliary fuel data:

(1) Fuel consumption and lubricants use of vehicles by NACE activities and by households, as recorded by CYSTAT (in value). These are data from the HBS and the annual SBS surveys.
(2) Consumption of fuel for heating or production purposes by NACE activities, as recorded by CYSTAT (in value). These are data from the annual SBS surveys.
(3) Sales of petroleum products by end-user, as recorded by CYSTAT (in quantity).
(4) Fuel prices by type of fuel.

PEFA maintain a satisfactory level of coherence with AEA because of the following reasons:

(1) Many of the main data sources used to calculate the emission inventories are common with the data sources used to compile PEFA. Specifically, AEA is mostly based on the inventory-first approach which means that it is based on the categorical breakup of the emission inventories. The inventories are produced by two different expert departments in Cyprus. The two departments' calculations are mostly based on the Annual Energy Questionnaires, but not exhaustively. Other sources of energy data are also used and this practice can result in some incoherence with PEFA.

(2) Up to a certain level, the auxiliary data sources used for the allocation to NACE divisions, for the two elements, are common. Subsequently, additional information is incorporated to differentiate the allocation for PEFA by energy product.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.