Energy Indicators for Sustainable Development: Guidelines and Methodologies International Atomic Energy Agency United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs International Energy Agency Eurostat European Environment Agency

(b) Measuring Methods: 
Energy Use: Energy use is usually measured as final energy at the point of 
consumption; that is, the factory or establishment. ‘Own energy’ (including internal 
use of hydropower, biofuels or internal waste heat) should be combined with 
purchased energy to obtain total final energy use. 
Complications in interpreting energy-intensity data arise from the fact that some 
branches of manufacturing might be concentrated in regions of a country rich in 
certain kinds of power or heat sources, so that those branches constitute a lower 
energy burden on the economy than the indicator would suggest. Interpretation is also 
complicated when a particular branch has significant internal energy resources, such 
as captive hydropower, biofuels or coal. 
For combined production of heat and electricity, no simple method exists for dividing 
the total energy used between these two outputs. Where excess heat or electricity is 
sold or provided to outside establishments or a grid, the energy required for this 
outgoing supply should not be allocated to the product of the establishment or branch. 
In some cases, it might be preferable to measure total primary energy use including 
losses incurred in the external production and distribution of the purchased electricity 
and heat as these losses would occur if the establishment or branch used the primary 
energy directly. Primary energy use per unit of output measures the total energy 
burden on the economy of a unit of output from a given industry. Generally, the 
energy loss from converting primary energy to electricity is estimated using the 
average ratio for electricity production in the economy. There are various conventions 
for calculating the primary energy corresponding to electricity produced by nuclear, 
hydropower or geothermal sources. 
It is also possible to measure total energy use, internal and external for any final 
product, by using input-output tables. This approach allows the measuring of the 
energy embodied in materials and intermediate products; however, this is a very data-
intensive task and input-output tables are not produced regularly. 

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Units: toe for final energy and kWh for electricity. 
Output: Both value added and gross output may be used to measure economic output 
from the industrial sector. In both cases, the real national currency is used, deflated by 
the deflator for the sector or branch to a base year. This step is crucial, so that the 
weight of each sector or branch reflects the correct weight in the base year. The value 
of output can then be converted to a common international currency, usually US 
dollars, using purchasing power parities (PPP). One alternative is to calculate the total 
value of production or shipments, or gross output. This represents the total value of all 
outputs from a given industry. Value added is equal to the contribution to GDP arising 
from the sector, which represents only the increase in economic output produced by 
the sector or branch in question. 
The gross output measure tends to be more stable over time but has the disadvantage 
that it cannot be aggregated to total output because of double counting; the inputs to 
one branch may be the outputs of another branch. On the one hand, value added could 
be aggregated but may have greater fluctuations from year to year if input costs or 
output prices change. On the other hand, using value added allows the estimation of 
impacts on energy use from structural changes. 
Unit: Constant currency. The market value of output in the real national currency is 
deflated to a base year using GDP deflators. The national currency can be converted 
to US dollars, using the PPP for the base year.