Survey Forms
Electricity Survey Form Changes
2013 Proposals
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) is proposing to make changes to its electricity data collection in 2013. These changes involve three forms:
- Form EIA-861, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report"
- The addition of a new form, the Form EIA-861S, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Short Form)"
- Form EIA-923, "Power Plant Operations Report."
The proposals were initially announced to the public via a Federal Register Notice published March 15, 2012. Comments regarding this proposed information collection were due by May 14, 2012. EIA reviewed all comments and made several revisions to the proposals as a result. A second Federal Register Notice was published on August 30, 2012. It outlines the proposals as revised and gives the public until October 1, 2012 to comment.
Comments should be directed to:
| DOE Desk Officer Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs Office of Management and Budget New Executive Office Building 735 17th Street NW. Washington, DC 20503 |
And to: | Rebecca A. Peterson Office of Electricity, Renewables, and Uranium Statistics Energy Information Administration Email: ERUS2013@eia.gov Fax: 202-287-1938 |
Proposal Details:
- Form EIA-861, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report"
The EIA-861 survey collects retail sales, revenue, and a variety of information related to demand response and energy efficiency from approximately 3,300 respondents (primarily electric utilities). However, many of these responding utilities are very small distribution companies with small sales and few if any demand response and related programs. For instance, of the 3,300 respondents, one-third (about 1,100) account for one percent of total annual electric sales in the United States.
EIA has also found that these smallest respondents consume a disproportionately large share of the agency's data collection and processing resources. This is because the small companies have limited resources to devote to data gathering and government reporting.
EIA is proposing to modify the frame for this survey from a census to a sample of approximately 2,200 entities, and use imputation methods to estimate the total sales, revenues, and customer counts by sector and state. Certain other data would be reported only for the sample completing the survey.
- See the proposed EIA-861 form and instructions
- See the proposed sampling and estimation methodology
- Form EIA-861S, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Short Form)"
EIA is proposing to create the new Form EIA-861S. The Form EIA-861S has been designed for the approximately 1,100 respondents that would be removed from the Form EIA-861 frame based on certain characteristics. The Form EIA-861S will collect a limited amount of sales, revenue, and customer count data and, for certain respondents, data on time-based rate customers and advanced meter reading (Advanced Metering Infrastructure/Automatic Meter Reading). Once every 5 years the Form EIA-861S respondents would be asked to fill out the Form EIA-861 for sampling methodology purposes.
This proposal is slightly different from the original as a result of comments received in response to the first Federal Register Notice in March. EIA added total revenue and total customer counts to the data collected.
- See the proposed NEW EIA-861S form and instructions
- See the proposed sampling and estimation methodology - Form EIA-923, "Power Plant Operations Report"
The Form EIA-923 proposal involves modifying the reporting requirements for only Schedule 2, which collects cost and quality data of fossil fuel purchases at electricity generating plants. The proposal is to raise the reporting threshold to 200 megawatts (MW) of nameplate capacity for power plants primarily fueled by natural gas, petroleum coke, distillate fuel oil, and residual fuel oil. EIA will remove the reporting requirement for self-produced and minor fuels, i.e., blast furnace gas, other manufactured gases, kerosene, jet fuel, propane, and waste oils. The reporting threshold for coal plants will remain at 50 MW of nameplate capacity.
In its original proposal, EIA intended to raise the reporting threshold for all plants to 200 MW. Based on the comments received in response to the first Federal Register Notice, EIA will keep the 50 MW threshold for coal plants.
- See the proposed EIA-923 form and instructions
- See the sample reduction impact proposed for fossil fuel receipts data.