EIA Reports

U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON DC 20585

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 17, 1998

Electric Power Data and Confidentiality

The Energy Information Administration announced today in the Federal Register proposed revisions to its procedure for the confidential treatment of electric power data collected from the electric power industry. The new procedures are designed to provide equal treatment for data from utilities and nonutilities, but would not become final until an additional period for public comment is concluded.

Data that would be exempt from disclosure are:

Future generating capacity -- planned additions, retirement dates, and changes to existing units.

Heat rates.

Contract information of wholesale and retail sales.

Fuel stocks.

Environmental equipment financial data.

Certain data elements that would become or remain available to the public are information about existing units (except their full load heat rate), net or gross generation, fuel consumption, environmental data, sales and revenue, and financial reports from publicly owned utilities.

Currently such electric utility data are publicly available from EIA through the electric power survey series. However, most data collected from the nonutilty power generators are treated as commercially sensitive and not releasable in disaggregated form. The thrust of the updated procedure is to make disclosure of data from all electric power participants equal.

As deregulation moves the electric power generation market toward retail competition EIA is seeking appropriate and equitable treatment of electric power data. EIA called for comments from the industry and all interested parties on this crucial issue in January of this year (Federal Register, Vol. 63, No. 8, January 13, 1998, p. 1960). EIA received 116 comments from survey respondents and industry representatives specifying their position(s) on the confidentiality treatment of these data.

The EIA procedure was developed by weighing the concerns of the industry, as reflected in their comments, with the legal implications of any action taken and the laws governing EIA survey collection series - the Trade Secret Act, Freedom of Information Act, Clean Air Act, and the Paperwork Reduction Act. The proposed EIA procedure affects the dissemination of the data, not the collection of the data.

The full text of today's Federal Register notice is available on the EIA Web page at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/forms/confidentiality/fr_notice98_7.html and in the Federal Register , Vol. 63, No137, p. 38,620.

The report described in this press release was prepared by the Energy Information Administration, the independent statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. The information contained in the report and the press release should be attributed to the Energy Information Administration and should not be construed as advocating or reflecting any policy position of the Department of Energy or any other organization.

EIA Program Contact: John Colligan, 202/426-1174

EIA Press Contact: National Energy Information Center, 202/586-8800

EIA-98-17

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