Survey Forms
Electricity Survey Form Changes in 2013
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) proposed 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 outlined the proposals as revised and instructed the public to comment directly to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) by October 1, 2012. EIA was notified that OMB approved EIA's proposals on December 21, 2012.
Details regarding 2013 changes:
- Form EIA-861, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report"
The EIA-861 survey has historically collected 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.
Therefore, EIA has modified the frame for this survey from a census to a sample of approximately 2,200 entities, and will use imputation methods to estimate the total sales, revenues, and customer counts by sector and state. Certain other data will be reported only for the sample completing the survey.
- See the revised EIA-861 form and instructions
- Form EIA-861S, "Annual Electric Power Industry Report (Short Form)"
EIA has created the new Form EIA-861S. The Form EIA-861S was designed for the approximately 1,100 respondents that have been removed from the Form EIA-861 frame based on certain characteristics. The Form EIA-861S collects 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 will be asked to fill out the Form EIA-861 for sampling methodology purposes.
- See the NEW EIA-861S form and instructions
- Form EIA-923, "Power Plant Operations Report"
The Form EIA-923 revision modifies the reporting requirements for only Schedule 2, which collects cost and quality data of fossil fuel purchases at electricity generating plants. The revision raises 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 has removed 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.
- See the revised EIA-923 form and instructions