Indigenous production, transformation and consumption of energy

What does the survey comprise?

Purpose

To obtain monthly and annual figures regarding the indigenous production, transformation, and consumption of natural gas, coal, other fossil fuels (such as residual gases), renewable energy, nuclear energy, and other energy carriers (such as non-biogenic household and industrial waste) in the Netherlands. The renewable energy research is used for the figures concerning the production of renewable electricity.

The figures resulting from this research are part of the Dutch energy balance sheet.

Target population

Companies established in the Netherlands that produce energy, with the exception of companies that process oil.

Statistical unit

CBS maintains its own business register in which Dutch companies and enterprises are described as statistical units. This General Business Register forms the basis for defining the population and sampling of many business economic statistics. Based on this register, so-called business units (for example, individual locations of a company) are derived, which serve as statistical units for energy statistics.

Information about business units is collected through surveys and administrative sources. Some of the information from administrative sources is not collected at the business unit level, but directly at the national level or at the level of individual grid connections and then aggregated directly to the sectoral level.

Date/year survey started

Figures on coal production are available from 1802; for natural gas, figures are available from 1946; and for electricity, figures are available from 1929.

Frequency

The larger companies that produce energy are observed monthly, the others annually. The most important administrative sources are also available monthly.

Publication strategy

The figures are incorporated into various publications. Due to international agreements, rapid figures on natural gas supply are published within a month. Preliminary figures on the supply and consumption of electricity and coal are published on StatLine in the second month after the end of a reporting month.

The figures are also included in the Dutch energy balance sheet. An initial version of the energy balance sheet for the previous reporting year is published on StatLine annually in March/April. A more extensive version is published in June and updated in November. The figures become final in November of the second year following the reporting year. During updates of the Energy Balance, the monthly figures are also updated to ensure consistency with the Energy Balance.

How is the survey conducted?

Survey type

This is an integrative statistic that combines multiple information sources. This includes data from administrative sources, data from public websites, and data from Statistics Netherlands' own surveys. Some of the data is derived by combining existing data.

The data come from energy companies and energy consumers in all size categories, 0 through 9. Only companies that produce energy to a significant extent are included in this study.

Survey Method

Observation is conducted via digital questionnaires. Data from administrative sources provided to Statistics Netherlands via a secure internet connection, are also used. Data from public websites is retrieved via web scraping.

Respondents

These are energy companies and energy consumers that produce energy in the Netherlands. Statistics Netherlands also collects data from administrative sources such as the operators of the main transmission networks for natural gas (GTS) and electricity (TenneT), the data service for regional grid operators (EDSN), the operators of the LNG terminals, and Gas Infrastructure Europe (for natural gas stocks).

Sample size

CBS surveys approximately 35 business units monthly for electricity production and coal consumption, and approximately 100 business units annually. The administrative sources covers mostly nearly all relevant installations at which the specific source is targeted.

Verification and Correction Methods

The surveys completed by respondents are checked against a number of plausibility checks.

The energy balance must be balanced for each business unit. This means that the total supply of an energy carrier must equal the total consumption. The supply side of the balance shows the total available energy for each energy carrier. This is the sum of extraction, the balance of imports and exports, the stock change, and own production. The consumption side is broken down into consumption for energy conversion to other energy carriers (for example, the use of natural gas for electricity production) and final consumption (for example, the use of natural gas for residential heating). The opening stock of the current period must equal the closing stock of the previous period.
The figures undergo a plausibility check by comparing them with the previous period, with the corresponding periods of previous years, and, where applicable, with existing administrative sources.
In the event of any ambiguities, inquiries will be made with the company in question.

Weighting

The Energy Production, Transformation, and Consumption study is conducted through census survey. Therefore, the results are not weighted.

Quality of the results?

Accuracy

The energy carriers are published in energy quantities (terajoules or petajoules) and/or in physical units. Examples of physical units are natural gas in millions of cubic meters (m3), coal in millions of kilograms (kg), and electricity in millions of kilowatt-hours (kWh). The accuracy of the figures is difficult to summarize briefly and quantitatively. For some important energy carriers (electricity and natural gas), a statistical difference is published in the Dutch energy balance sheet. The size of the statistical difference can be considered a measure of uncertainty in total demand or total supply, usually a maximum of 2 percent.

Sequential Comparability

The figures are comparable in terms of definitions. The publication of the figures takes into account the change in the classification of the various sectors, namely SBI'93 and SBI2008, respectively.

Quality Strategy

All completed forms are checked. Any questions are returned to the respondent
Where possible, data are compared with administrative sources (such as environmental annual reports and grid operator data).
Statistics Netherlands adheres to international quality standards for energy data (in accordance with the Energy Statistics Manual of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and Eurostat).
Data processing is automated as much as possible.
At the national level, the plausibility of the development of key variables (such as total electricity, natural gas, and coal consumption) is assessed at each publication date.
Direct checks are also performed between crucial source data and publication variables (such as international trade in natural gas and electricity, natural gas consumption, natural gas stocks, and coal consumption by power plants and the steel industry).