Achieving accurate international comparisons of manufacturing energy use data

Increasing world-wide attention is focused on achieving improved energy eff iciency. When assessing energy efficiency, energy analysts and policy maker s often rely on only a few selected indicators of energy intensity. This pa per focuses on the energy consumption part used in manufacturing energy int ensity indicators and identifies the most common problems encountered when comparing these internationally. When energy intensity indicators are used to make international comparisons, the selection of appropriate and compara ble data is essential. Great attention must be paid to whether the data are expressed using the same definitions of consumption, whether they cover th e same activities, whether the fuels and industry classifications are the s ame, and whether the data are given in a common unit using the same type of calorific value, as well as to verifying the data collection methods used. Through detailed examples, the paper demonstrates the importance of ensuri ng the comparability of data, as a prerequisite for achieving accurate and useful international comparisons of manufacturing energy use data. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.