Summary Report of Energy Use
in the Canadian Manufacturing
Sector, 1995-2010
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3. Industrial energy data and sources
The Government of Canada, and Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) in particular, have worked with Canadian industry for more than 30 years to promote energy efficiency in industrial practices. The availability of good quality data on the Manufacturing sector’s energy consumption is essential to effectively monitor the energy efficiency of the sector.
Other data sources
NRCan works with various data sources to publish information on energy use in all sectors of the Canadian economy. For additional data, analysis and reports on the industrial sector, consult the following: Industrial Consumption of Energy (ICE) survey, Report on Energy Supply and Demand in Canada (RESD), Canadian Industry Program for Energy Conservation (CIPEC), Canadian Industrial Energy End-Use Data and Analysis Centre (CIEEDAC), and NRCan’s Demand and Policy Analysis Division (DPAD).
Sources for many of the charts and tables included in this report are taken from the following:
- Statistics Canada. Table 128-0006
– Energy fuel consumption of manufacturing industries in gigajoules, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), annual (gigajoules), CANSIM (database) - Statistics Canada. Table 379-0027 – Gross domestic product (GDP) at basic prices, by North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), monthly (dollars), CANSIM (database)
Factors influencing industrial energy demand
Several factors influence energy demand in the Manufacturing sector. These factors can work alone or in combination to increase or decrease total energy demand. It is difficult to attribute the observed changes to individual factors and even more difficult to produce an exhaustive list of these factors. Nevertheless, the following are some of the key factors that affect energy demand:
- Activity: This term refers to production, delivered services or other drivers of energy use in a sector (e.g. gross domestic product – or physical outputs in the industrial sector). Variation in production (activity) of an industry will have a direct influence on its energy consumption. If everything else remains constant, an increase in manufacturing output increases energy use.
- Price effect: If everything else remains constant, increases or decreases in production costs of a particular good are expected to reduce or increase demand for the product for various reasons (e.g. exchange rate, depletion of resource). Consequently, the activity level of the specific industry or subsector will be affected.
- Capacity utilization and scale effect: Increases or decreases in manufacturing production will cause excess capacity or the utilization of human capital to vary. Economies of scale within a plant can be observed for marginal production. This means that the next unit produced will use less energy than the previous one because the fixed energy needs of the plant are spread over more units of output.
- Change in the composition of the subsector production (structure effect): Energy intensity varies across specific manufacturing processes and products within a subsector. Changes in the composition of a subsector based on industry outputs can impact the subsector’s overall energy intensity.
- Energy efficiency measures: Industries usually undertake energy efficiency measures when the benefits of these actions outweigh the costs. For instance, using less energy for the production of goods gives an industry the ability to face higher energy costs, thus enhancing its competitive position.
However, the ICE report data do not take these influencing factors into account, with the exception of capacity utilization and scale effect. For specific details of the factorization method used to calculate energy intensity and energy efficiency improvements, refer to the Energy Efficiency Trends in Canada 1990 to 2009 report at oee.nrcan.gc.ca/publications/statistics/trends11/index.cfm.