Statistics Iceland

Economic Statistics

Borgartún 21A

105 Reykjavík

Iceland

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 Icelandic economy

Data covers in general 2014 - 2021

Not applicable.

The unit of measure is terajoule (TJ).

The data refer to the calendar year.

PEFA are legally covered by Regulation (EC) 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.

Lög um Hagstofu íslands og opinbera hagskýrslugerð 2007 nr. 163, Sector III (https://www.althingi.is/lagas/nuna/2007163.html)

Confidential data are flagged "confidential" and not published. Aggregates of confidential data respect Eurostat confidentiality rules.

Publication of the PEFA is not bound by an advanced release calendar.

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The data from the PEFA accounts are made available on the data repository of Statistics Iceland (https://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/is/Umhverfi/). The PEFA data is presented in several simplified summary formats in order to meet user's needs for information. The full PEFA account is available upon request.

The data is disseminated annually and reviewed semi-annually

A news release is posted on the news feed from Statistics Iceland simultaneously to update of the data.

Additional news releases are posted if the data is judged to be of value to national discussion.

No other official publications are made from the PEFA

The data is made available on the data repository (https://px.hagstofa.is/pxen/pxweb/en/Umhverfi/)

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

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Main presentations of the data online are

• Energy consumption by energy products and NACE sectors - Full view of Table B.1
• Consumption of renewable and non-renewable energy by economic sectors - Bio-fuels and the renewable fraction of heat and electricity production are summed under Renewable energy consumption. The remainder of the energy is considered non-renewable. The consumption is grouped by first letter of NACE sector. 
• Intake and consumption of energy by energy type for the economy and households. - A supply-transformation-use view by energy source for the whole economy.
• Supply and use of electricity by economic sector and year - A focus of Table B.1 for electricity showing both supply, transformation use, and end use
• Supply and use of heat by economic sector and year -  A focus of Table B.1 for heat showing both supply, transformation use, and end use
• Key indicators from PEFA - Posted for the production of UN-SDG

The usefulness of the tables are discussed in user forums where other presentations of the data are discussed

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

An Icelandic version of the metadata (lýsigögn) is accessible online at Statistics Iceland.

Methodology documentation for imputation and validation of the data are all internal documents to Statistics Iceland and produced in Icelandic. A documentation trace (HTML) is produced as a part of the compilation process (done through R-Markdown procedures) and stored along with the final PEFA questionnaire. Approximately 10 documents are generated during the PEFA compilation, one for each task in the process. The documents describe the data collection (and the success thereof), evaluate the quality of the data collected, perform the computation of mapping matrix, or calculate values that should be inserted into the PEFA builder. The documents then commonly contain some quality assessment of the values.

The code for the PEFA compilation is stored on in-house GitLab repository (not accessible from external networks).

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

After the PEFA builder has been used to generate the PEFA Questionnaire a number of post-processing checks are run. These checks return an HTML document trace with descriptions, tables, and graphs that are hopefully useful to catch any oddities in the data. The supply-use balance is checked by the built-in macros from the PEFA questionnaire (the macros are copied into the R-code and run there).

The PEFA compilation in Iceland is a one-person project. The final review of the PEFA data is therefore done by a group presentation and discussion in the Economy statistics team.  

The PEFA data is calculated on a year-by-year basis using the status of the IEA/ESTAT Annual Questionnaires received from the Icelandic Energy Authority (Orkustofnun). Each submission cycle includes the calculation of the two most recent years in the IEA/ESTAT Annual Questionnaires.  Data from previously submitted years is used to check the consistency of the IEA/ESTAT data and if the appropriate mapping arrays are used.

• A complete re-evaluation of submitted years is triggered if differences in the outcome are significant

The PEFA is calculated using the PEFA builder.

• Updates in this IT tool triggers a re-calculation of all previously submitted years

The year-to-year consistency in the PEFA data is compared to changes observed in other environmental-economic accounts (AEA and EW-MFA).

The quality of the PEFA data is under constant evaluation. 

New data sources with timelier information and more automation possibilities are constantly being developed. Once such sources are stabilized they are used to enrich or assist in the mapping of the IEA/ESTAT data to NACE sectors and can be used to validate the data further. 

AI and BI tools to evaluate the quality and consistency of the PEFA data are also constantly being developed and tested. 

The PEFA has been presented to members of the Icelandic Parlament, to specialists from "Samtök Iðnaðarins (SI)" and "Samtök Fyrirtækja í Sjávarútvegi (SFS)", which are industry-funded lobbying group. User meetings are held annually to present the Eurostat environmental statistics modules, including the PEFA. These meetings collect information on user needs in regard to data dissemination and further analysis based on the data.

User satisfaction is polled in an online poll following the annual meetings. 

Polling questions include the level of understanding of the subject matter in each of the environmental accounts and the accessibility (clarity) of the information.

2022 results showed that the focus group found the PEFA to be a convoluted account. Few users had an understanding of the supply-use methodology used in the PEFA.

2022 results showed that the focus group found the PEFA data to be more useful than other energy statistics on the Statistics Iceland website.

The data includes a full breakdown for seven years (2014-2021).

• Data prior to 2016 have somewhat more limited detail in vehicle registry and inspection records. This limits the quality of energy consumption for road transport for the NACE sectors
• Data prior to 2018 have somewhat limited detail in the registered area (volume) of operation space for smaller industries and for the service industries. This limits the quality of heat consumption of these industries. The IEA data has no recorded consumption of heat for industrial sectors

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

The overall accuracy is considered to be good. The main limitation in accuracy originates by the accuracy of the IEA data

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• Initial IEA data is received in February-March each year. Validation and correction of error found in this data is usually completed within two months. Orkustofnun has delayed the final compilation of the IEA account to September.
• The preliminary PEFA account (3 years) should be complete in May or June. Validation and checking of this account uses the AEA/EW-MFA accounts for cross-validation. This may delay the final approval of the PEFA
• The submission goal for the PEFA account is September 30th. Feedback of the account and requests for clarification are usually received a month after the first submission. 
• The data repository of Statistics Iceland is updated within 10 days of submission of the PEFA account to Eurostat.
• The data repository of Statistics Iceland is updated again within 10 days of re-submission and final approval of the PEFA account.

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Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

Data on PEFA are compiled according to international guidelines and insofar as comparable. Application of the PEFA Builder tool ensures comparability to a certain extent.

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Please see the table in 15.2.1.1.

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

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

The main data source (IEA data) used here has been somewhat error pitted in the previous years. This may in part be due to unstable methodologies and the time crunch that Orkustofnun is under to complete and submit the accounts. 

Once the IEA data is received extensive trust-but-validate processing is done on each cell in the data where we check

1. If the data has changed between submissions - changes are logged
2. If the energy import data (coal, oil, and gas) is consistent with the import/export database
3. If the energy production (electric and heat) is consistent with the sales records of the producer (annual accounts)
4. If the delivery of heat and electricity is consistent with the sales records of the distributor
5. If the energy delivered to road transport is consistent with the recorded driving distances of all vehicles in Iceland
6. If the use of biofuels and renewable fuels is consistent with records from waste statistics

The IEA data is reviewed and changes may ber requested if there are large discrepancies in the data. 

Once the data is "stable", the IEA and subsequently PEFA will be coherent cross-domain

Not applicable; reported PEFA data are only annual.

The PEFA data is compared with the available National Accounts in order to check coherence

With the exception of the fishing industry, which affects sectors A03 and C10-C12, the PEFA for 2014-2020 is coherent with the same range in the National Accounts. The entanglement of fishing and fish processing in Iceland makes it impossible to clearly separate financial gain in the two key sectors, whereas operations of the fishing fleet and processing of fish are clearly distinguishable in terms of energy flow. The PEFA and NA are therefore not coherent for these sectors. 

I am the one that knocks

The data flows and models developed for the AEA are used in the PEFA

The methodology and models developed for the EW-MFA (using SEEA-CF) are used in the PEFA compilation

The PEFA air-transport data is not compared to the OECD data on CO2 emissions, but this data is reviewed when the AEA is compiled.

The PEFA compilation is verified against internally maintained datasets on energy statistics, mainly electricity distribution and fuel distribution records. 

Significant deviations are brought to the attention of Orkustofnun, which compiles the IEA data. This may trigger change in the dataset

Import and export figures for fuels, oils, and other energy materials are cross-checked against the processing records and published data in the EW-MFA.

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

The initial development of the PEFA data compilation tool took approximately one full year of expert equivalent time (FTE). 

The compilation time of the PEFA is nominal (semi-automated).

Error checking and validation takes 2-3 months FTE, depending on the number of errors detected in the IEA data

Publication and presentation of the data takes 1 month FTE on average

Refining and maintenance of the PEFA data compilation tool, which is scheduled every three years is estimated to take 3-4 months FTE

The compilation of the PEFA returns one year each time (the reference year) using the most recent edition of the PEFA-Builder IT tool

• The reference year is re-compiled if any changes are made to the underlying IEA data for the reference year

During the compilation of the PEFA two years prior to the reference year are calculated and used to validate the dataflow used pre- and post-use of the PEFA-builder.

• All previously submitted years will be re-calculated if updates in the dataflow used in the pre- and post-use of the PEFA change the data significantly, and the changes improve the coherence of the PEFA outcome
• All previously submitted years will be re-calculated if the PEFA-builder has been updated in such a way that the data changes significantly

Revised data is submitted to Eurostat on an annual basis.

Revised data is published immediately on the Statistics Iceland data repository

Will be calculated and provided by EUROSTAT.

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

• The Icelandic Energy Authority (Orkustofun) collects information on natural energy input directly from energy producers.
• Statistics Iceland supplies Orkustofnun with information on energy material import and export
• Statistics Iceland collects trade information from the toll authorities. This information is used to validate the supply of energy materials

• The Icelandic Energy Authority (Orkustofun) collects information on the supply and distribution of energy materials directly through questionnaires sent to energy distribution companies. 
• Orkustofnun collects information supply and distribution of heat and electricity directly from distributors.
• Orkustofnun collects information regarding oil refineries from companies operating in Iceland based on the Statistics Iceland business register.
• Statistics Iceland collects information on the supply of electricity from a central data broker servicing energy distributors. This data is used to validate the data collected by Orkustofnun. 

Orkustofnun has an internal methodology for the efficiency and activity of the transformation sector. This methodology is based on limited survey data and registry data.

Statistics Iceland has semi-annual survey data for material consumption (non-energy and energy use) for the majority of energy material consumption (80% of total supply). This statistics is used to distribute material consumption for the whole economy.

Statistics Iceland has registry data for:

• Vehicle ownership/operation by NACE sector or households
• Vehicle usage (inspection record and model)
• Employment numbers by Nace sector (monthly statistics) - used to estimate industrial activity
• Area/volume of operation space for each industry - used to estimate heating/electricity consumption
• Productivity data for agriculture - used to estimate energy and fuel consumption by farming, forestry, fish-farming and food processing (outside fish processing)
• Quantity of fish caught and assigned production for the raw material - used to estimate energy consumption by fleet and fish processing
• Export data of manufactured products - used to estimate and validate energy consumption by industries

This data is used to estimate shift and distribution keys for the IEA data

The PEFA builder is used to populate the PEFA tables. 

Post-processing modules are used to validate and tweak the outcome where weaknesses in the IEA data are known.

The residence principle uses the same adjustment as is used in the AEA compilation. 

These sources include

• Vehicle rental activities to foreign individuals
• Fuel purchased abroad by shipping industries, fishing industries, airline operators, and construction companies
• Data from credit/debit card transactions in Iceland - used to estimate fuel purchases by foreign individuals on territory
• Data from the central bank regarding purchasing of nationals abroad (from vehicle service stations)
• Arrival/departure records from the port authorities for vessels, including flag state and nationality of the operator of the vessel

Most of the data sources that are used for resident adjustment are updated monthly or updated continuously

Data on financial transactions are updated bimonthly

AEA data is updated quarterly

IEA data is collected biannually

Industry survey data used for production statistics is done biannually

• Data validation of IEA data is done by comparing each reported cell with financial activity metrics, or by direct comparison with known totals from transaction data sources within Statistics Iceland.
• The resulting PEFA values are compared with emission intensities in the AEA account, under the assumption that the emissions are mainly due to the consumption and use of energy materials.
• The resulting PEFA values are compared with the number of full-time employment equivalences within each NACE sector. The assumption is that employment within a NACE sector is an indicator of energy need of the sector

The PEFA questionnaire is initially produced by the PEFA-builder. 

The builder requires some documents (mapping) to be added to it, these documents are produced in an R-process stack.

Common oddities and adjustments on the PEFA questionnaire are then performed by a post-builder R-processing of the questionnaire

Not applicable.

All supply is assigned to NACE D35

Vehicle registry data, ownership/operation registry and inspection records are used to estimate the road transport energy.

• The vehicle registry contains vehicle age, weight, engine configuration and energy source for the vehicle
• The ownership/operations provide information on changes in who owns and who operates each vehicle and if the vehicle has registered license plates. The ownership record gives a direct connection to the economic sector of the operator.
• The inspection records give an annual driving distance of vehicles, with some exceptions of new vehicles. Ownership change also gives the distance meter readout in the vehicle upon ownership change
• Driving distances of new vehicles or missing distances for older vehicles are imputed using artificial neural network and random forest algorithms. 

This information is used to create an owner-distance trace for each vehicle. The energy needed for driving (per month) is then estimated using manufacturer information that is adjusted using mechanical engine parameters for specific energy consumption by vehicle weight. The total energy consumption of the entire fleet for the entire year is then re-normalized using the known fuel/energy input.

The relative energy per industry sector is then extracted from the computation.

• Houses in heated by a national hot-water grid that delivers heat to installed radiators or forced air heat exchangers.
• The heating requirement varies by the type of operation (home, office, warehouse, stores, manufacturing space, or open space) and the total area/volume of the space in question. 
• Registry information for real estate holding and real estate rental agreements is available at Statistics Iceland. Usage classification in this registry is used to estimate the heating needs of this space. 

Electricity delivery has recently become available at Statistics Iceland (starting in June 2023). This data details the electricity delivered to each electricity meter in the country. The meter is assigned to a payee along with the industrial classification of the meter. Survey data collected for 2016, 2018, 2020, and 2022 were previously used to generate an allocation map for electricity.

The IEA data is one of the underlying sources for the NIR report, which in turn is one of the main sources for the AEA. Residence adjustment and refinement to the AEA are then done using import/export statistics, employment and economic activities, and vehicle statistics. The same method and data sources are also used to adjust and map the IEA data to economic sectors. 

The two accounts should therefore be largely coherent, unless

1. A discrepancy has been introduced when the adjustment methods were updated
2. The IEA data has been changed after the NIR was produced
3. There is a discrepancy in the compilation of the NIR report

Minor discrepancies are expected in the AEA and PEFA due to how many data processing steps are done in the processing of AEA, IEA, NIR and PEFA. Coherencies that are checked are

1. The CO2 emission per TJ energy should be largely consistent between years. The coefficient may not be identical between NACE sectors since different sectors use different mix of energies. The ratio may also shift slightly between years due to technological changes, but major shifts or voids may signify errors
2. TJ energy per full-time employee equivalence within economic sector should remain largely consistent between years. Due to automation and technological advances, we would expect the ratio to increase slightly between years. The ratio of CO2 emission per employee should, however, decrease slightly between years

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