Towards the revised
International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES)

The International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES) are being developed in accordance with the decisions of the United Nations Statistical Commission at its 36th and 37th sessions which, inter alia, recognized the significance of energy statistics, recommended their development as part of official statistics and called for the revision and further development of the relevant international standards (see the Reports on the thirty-sixth session and on the thirty-seventh session of the Commission). These decisions followed a programme review of energy statistics conducted by Statistics Norway and the recommendations of Ad-Hoc Expert Group on Energy Statistics ( New York, 23-25 May 2005).

The Statistical Commission approved the establishment of two complimentary working groups to carry out the work: (a) the Oslo Group on Energy Statistics to contribute to the development of improved methods and international standards for national official energy statistics, and, in particular, to review and contribute to the updating of the United Nations handbooks and manuals on energy statistics; and (b) the Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics to enhance international collaboration and coordination.

UNSD is focusing now on the preparation of concrete outputs in response to the Commission’ s decisions. In particular, UNSD decided to review and consolidate the revised recommendations on energy statistics and accounts, which merit adoption by the Commission, into two documents, namely the International Recommendations for Energy Statistics (IRES) and the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting for Energy (SEEA-E).

IRES is intended to cover a broad range of issues from basic concepts, definitions and classifications to data sources, data compilation strategies, energy balances and dissemination. Once approved by the Commission, IRES will provide a firm foundation for a long-term development of energy statistics based on Fundamental Principles of Official Statistics. Additional guidance to assist countries in the implementation of IRES will be provided in the Energy Statistics Compilers Manual (ESCM) which will be prepared by UNSD as a part of IRES implementation programme.

The role of UNSD is to coordinate the preparation of IRES, ensure a global consultation, consolidate and edit the inputs into the successive versions of the draft IRES, submit the final document to the Statistical Commission and coordinate the preparation and publication of ESCM. The Oslo Group and the Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics are the key content provider to IRES and ESCM in accordance to their mandates given by the Statistical Commission. The London Group on Environmental Accounting will also be consulted. The United Nations Committee of Experts on Environmental Economic Accounting (UNCEEA) will be consulted as well, given its coordination role in environment statistics and environmental-economic accounting.

The SEEA-E is also being prepared by UNSD and it will provide the international statistical standard for energy accounts consisting of agreed concepts, definitions, classifications and inter-related tables and accounts. IRES and SEEA-E are two complementary documents and their preparation will be fully coordinated. While IRES will comply to the extent possible with the SEEA-E conceptual structure and data needs, SEEA-E will develop its accounting standards on the basis of the IRES (e.g., using IRES definitions of data items and classifications of energy products and flows). The SEEA-E is being developed in consultation with the London Group and the Oslo Group under the auspices of the UNCEEA.

A key element in the preparation of IRES is a worldwide consultation with countries. A worldwide consultation process has bee established.

Organization of the revision process

IRES is tentatively scheduled to be submitted to the UN Statistical Commission at its 41st session (March 2010). The preparation of IRES is organized according to the following steps with provisional dates (see report of the 3rd meeting of the Oslo Group):

a) Preparation of an annotated outline of IRES for a worldwide consultation (end of March 2008);

b) Worldwide consultation with countries on the scope and content of IRES (April-May 2008);

c) Organization of an International Workshop on Energy Statistics to focus on the user needs and data collection capabilities, especially of the developing countries (December 2008);

d) Preparation of the first version of IRES and its review by the 4th meeting of the Oslo Group (February 2009);

e) Review of the first version of IRES by the Intersecretariat Working Group on Energy Statistics at its next meeting

f) Worldwide consultation on the provisional draft IRES (May-June 2009);

g) Preparation of the amended draft of IRES, its review and endorsement by the UN Expert Group on Energy Statistics [Q4, 2009]; and

h) Submission of the final draft of IRES to the 41st session of the UN Statistical Commission for adoption (December 2009).