Chapter 3 - Commercial/Institutional Sector
The Data Situation
Aggregate data on commercial/institutional energy use are reported in Statistics Canada’s Report on Energy Supply and Demand in Canada (RESD) (Cat. No. 57-003-X) under the “public administration” and “commercial and other institutional” categories.
In 2014, Statistics Canada revised the amount of electricity used in the commercial/institutional sector. The revision affects the 2013 data with a backcast to 1990. The reader should be aware that this edition does not include changes from the 2017 CANSIM update. These will be included in the next edition.
To provide more detail on how energy is used and assess Canadian energy use trends in this sector, the Office of Energy Efficiency (OEE) developed the Commercial/Institutional End-Use Model (CEUM). This model is used to allocate the energy use reported in the RESD to 10 activity types and six end uses. To do so, other information is required, mainly, data on floor space and energy intensity.
Thus, floor space estimates are provided by Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). The data are developed from average costs per unit of floor space and investment flows for new construction. These estimates are categorized using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS). Also, CEUM used the Survey of Commercial and Institutional Energy Use – Establishments (SCIEU) as reference for energy intensities. The latest SCIEU was undertaken by Statistics Canada on behalf of the OEE to collect data for the reference year 2009. The results of SCIEU 2014 will be available for the next edition of this handbook.
Furthermore, the SCIEU includes new information related to the penetration rate for air conditioners, which was used to update the model accordingly.
The model also takes into account the influence of weather on commercial/institutional energy demand. It uses the number of heating degree-days in Monthly Values of Degree-Days Below 18.0°C and the number of cooling degree-days in Monthly Values of Degree-Days Above 18.0°C (both reports from ECCC).
The commercial/institutional prices of heating oil and natural gas are weighted averages of regional prices. Heating oil prices are provided by the Petroleum Resources Branch of Natural Resources Canada. Natural gas prices are from Statistics Canada’s CANSIM Table 129-0003. The commercial/institutional prices of electricity are a weighted average of the data found in Hydro-Québec’s Comparison of Electricity Prices in Major North American Cities.