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Iceland

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Physical energy flow accounts (env_pefa)

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National Reference Metadata in Single Integrated Metadata Structure (SIMS)

Compiling agency: Statistics Iceland

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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

26 December 2021

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

The data refer to the calendar year.

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

The unit of measure is terajoule (TJ).

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

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

The data is disseminated annually and reviewed semi-annually

  • 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.

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.

Please see the table in 15.2.1.1.