Energy Flow in Canada

Energy Flow in Canada image

Explore Canada's energy landscape through Sankey diagrams that visualize the flow of electricity, natural gas, crude oil, and more. These diagrams show how energy is moved, transformed, and used across sectors.

Methodology for Canadian Energy Flow Sankey Diagrams

This document describes the definition and the data source for energy supply and consumption in Canada by sector and flow lines in the Sankey diagram for Canadian Energy Flow.

Data sources

Statistics Canada’s Report on Energy Supply and Demand, 57-003 X, 2022, is the latest available preliminary data.

Natural Resources Canada’s (NRCan) Energy Use Data Handbook NEUD, 2022, provides a statistical overview of Canada’s sectoral energy markets. The handbook covers five sectors at an aggregate level: residential, commercial/institutional, industrial, transportation, agriculture and electricity generation. The statistical data are the tables produced from each sector models.

The Available Energy

In all diagrams, the amount of available energy is expressed in Petajoules. The available energy is the sum of domestic production, imports, inter-regional transfers, inter-product transfers, and other adjustments minus stock variation and minus export.

Methodologies

Total Energy Flow in Canada

The Energy Flow in Canada section shows how various energy sources move through Canada's economy and infrastructure. This section features interactive Sankey diagrams that illustrate the flow of electricity, natural gas, crude oil and refined petroleum products crude oil and refined petroleum products (crude-RPP), natural gas liquids (NGL), coal, coke, and coke oven gas. Sankey diagrams are powerful tools for visualizing energy data, as they highlight the magnitude of energy inputs, transformations, and outputs through proportionally sized flow paths. Whether viewed individually or in combined formats, these diagrams help users understand the scale and direction of energy use across sectors, supporting informed decisions and deeper insights into Canada's energy landscape.

Electricity and Steam Flow

RESD consumption data for electricity and steam by sector is compared to the NRCan’s model output from residential, commercial and institutional, industrial, transportation and agriculture models. The difference between RESD data and NRCan’s model results is due to re-allocation of fuels between sectors.

  1. The electricity production is the sum of primary electricity and secondary electricity. The primary electricity is generated by hydro, nuclear wind, tidal and solar. The secondary electricity is generated from thermal generation such as burning oil, liquid natural gas, coal and other substances to rotate generators.

  2. The input energy for electricity and steam generation is the sum of:

    1. hydro, nuclear, coal, natural gas, refined petroleum products (petroleum coke, heavy fuel oil, diesel fuel oil, light fuel oil, motor gasoline), wind, biomass, solar, tidal, geothermal, wood and other fuel types for electricity generation plus input energy used for steam generation.
    2. The input values for wind, nuclear, hydro, solar, and geothermal fuel types indicate the generated electricity (PJ) by these energy sources.
        3. Data sources:
      • RESD table, Electricity generation table in the Energy Use Data Handbook by NRCan.
      • 25-10-0020-01: Electric power, annual generation by class of producer Canada, Province or territory, annual

  3. Electricity and steam production and available electricity and steam

    Steam production and availability are added to the electricity flow line.

  4. Total electricity and steam consumption is the sum of all sectors.

Natural Gas Flow

Raw natural gas is the gross withdrawals from the natural gas well. The raw natural gas is processed into marketable natural gas by removing water, NGLs and impurities. RESD table reports marketable natural gas data.

The raw natural gas production is the value for gross withdrawals from the source table: 25-10-0055-01, Supply and disposition of natural gas, monthly, Canada, province and territory. Other flows represent data for-marketable natural gas.

  1. The available marketable natural gas is the sum of production, imports, inter-product transfers, other adjustments minus stock variation and minus exports. It represents the total amount available for domestic consumption.

    Data sources: Table 25-10-0029-01, Supply and Demand of primary and secondary energy in terajoules, annual.

  2. The available natural gas flows into the consumption sectors, i.e., industrial, residential, commercial, agriculture and transportation.

    The data for natural gas consumption by sectors comes from the RESD data which is fed into NRCan’s Energy Use Data Handbook.

  3. Natural gas is also used as producer consumption and non-energy use. Natural gas is also transformed to refined petroleum products and steam.

Crude-Refined Petroleum Products Flow

  1. Petroleum flow covers crude oil and refined petroleum products.

    Data sources: Table 25-10-0029-01, Supply and Demand of primary and secondary energy in terajoules, annual.

  2. Crude oil flows: Represent production of crude oil, export, import and available crude oil.

    The crude oil is refined into petroleum products encompassing liquified petroleum gasses (LPG’s), still gas, motor gasoline, kerosene and stove oil, diesel fuel oil, light fuel oil, heavy fuel oil, petroleum coke, aviation gasoline, aviation turbo fuel and non-energy products.

  3. The renewable energies covering fuel ethanol and biodiesel fuel oil and renewable diesel are already included in the RESD data under motor gasoline and diesel fuel oil.

  4. The available amount of Refined Petroleum Products is the sum of RPP production, imports, inter product transfers, other adjustments minus stock variation and minus exports.

  5. Producer consumption data comes from NRCan’s industrial model. It is included in the energy consumption by the industrial sector. The difference between RESD and NRCan represents the producer consumption energy use by primary metal manufacturing industry, petroleum refining industry, and mining sector. In NRCan’s data, this portion of producer consumption is included in the industrial sector’s energy use, not reported as producer consumption.

  6. Non-energy use of RPP is not included in the RPP consumption by sectors. It represents RPP products used as petrochemical feedstock, anodes/cathodes, greases, lubricants, etc.

  7. RESD consumption data for RPP by sector is compared to the NRCan’s model results from residential, commercial and institutional, industrial, transportation and agriculture models. The differences between RESD data and NRCan’s model results are due to re-allocation of fuels between sectors in NRCan models.

Coal Flow (consists of coal, coke and coke oven gas)

  1. The amount of "available" coal consists of coal coke, coke oven gas.
  2. Data sources:

Natural Gas Liquids (Gas Plant Natural Gas Liquids)

  1. Natural gas liquids (NGLs) include propane, butane, and ethane. These are heavier hydrocarbons separated from raw natural gas during processing. Condensate produced at gas plants is classified with crude oil.

  2. NGLs are a valuable component of the energy system. The available NGL supply is allocated to non-energy uses as petrochemical feedstocks (mainly ethane) and final consumption (propane and butane) across the residential, commercial and institutional, industrial, transportation, and agriculture sectors.

  3. Data sources:

    • Table 25-10-0029-01, Supply and Demand of Primary & secondary energy in terajoules (coal, crude oil, natural gas, NGL (gas plant natural gas liquids), steam, primary and secondary electricity, coke, coke oven gas and RPP (refined petroleum products)).

    • Table 25-10-0026-01, Supply and demand of natural gas liquids, annual, Geography: Canada, Geographical region of Canada, Province or territory.

Biomass

  1. Biomass is not shown as a separate flow in the energy chart for two main reasons. First, fuels such as renewable diesel, biodiesel, and fuel ethanol are already included under diesel fuel and motor gasoline in refined petroleum products and therefore are captured in transportation energy use. Second, production data for waste wood, spent pulping liquor, and wood‐is not available.

  2. Biomass consists of wood waste, spent pulping liquor, fuel ethanol, biodiesel, renewable diesel, and wood. These are used across sectors: industry (wood waste and spent pulping liquor), transportation (biofuels), and electricity generation and residential sectors (wood). Their use is already captured in NEUD energy consumption data.

  3. The available amount is derived as sum of consumption by sectors.

  4. Data sources:
    • Industrial sector’s biomass energy use: NRCan’s Industrial Model.
    • Transportation sector’s biomass energy use is sourced from ECCC’s National Inventory Record, Part 1, 3.5.1, Table 3-17, Ethanol used for Transport in Canada. Table 3-18 Biodiesel used for transport in Canada. National inventory report : greenhouse gas sources and sinks in Canada.
    • Electricity Generation sector’s biomass energy use: NRCan’s Energy Use Data Handbook, Electricity Generation Energy Use and Generation by Energy Source.
    • Residential sector’s biomass energy use: NRCan’s Residential Model.

This document was produced in April 2026.

Sources used in Canadian Energy Flow Sankey Diagrams

Reports

Statistics Canada: Report on Energy Supply and Demand, 57-003 X, 2022.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan): Energy Use Data Handbook NEUD, 2022.

Environment and Climate Change Canada: National inventory report : greenhouse gas sources and sinks in Canada.

In addition to the RESD, Sankey-related terms can be found in CCEI's glossary: Canadian Centre for Energy Information.

Statistics Canada Tables

  • Table 25-10-0017-01 “Electric power generation, annual fuel consumed by electric utility thermal plants, inactive”.
  • Table 25-10-0020-01 “Electric power, annual generation by class of producer”.
  • Table 25-10-0026-01 “Supply and demand of natural gas liquids, annual”.
  • Table 25-10-0027-01 “Supply and demand of refined petroleum products for non-energy use, annual”.
  • Table 25-10-0028-01 “Electricity generated from fossil fuels, annual, inactive”.
  • Table 25-10-0029-01 “Supply and Demand of Primary & secondary energy in terajoules, annual”. (coal, crude oil, natural gas, NGL (gas plant natural gas liquids), steam, primary and secondary electricity, coke, coke oven gas and RPP (refined petroleum products)).
  • Table 25-10-0030-01 “Supply and Demand of Primary & secondary energy in natural units”. (coal, crude oil, natural gas, NGL (gas plant natural gas liquids), steam, primary and secondary electricity, coke, coke oven gas and RPP (refined petroleum products)).
  • Table 25-10-0031-01 “Consumption of solid wood waste and spent pulping liquor for energy production, annual”.
  • Table 25-10-0055-01 “Supply and disposition of natural gas, monthly”.