How governments can strengthen national energy information systems

To develop more secure and sustainable energy systems, governments worldwide are pushing for clean energy transitions, but tracking these efforts has not kept pace with the ambition.

Robust national energy information systems are key to assessing progress, as they are the basis of accurate and comprehensive data to track accomplishments, identify inefficiencies, and measure the impact of policies. Yet, energy data are not always embedded in the national statistical strategy, partly because they are often produced by line ministries or energy agencies instead of the national statistical office.

Although collecting energy information that is disaggregated across different sectors, products and technologies can be viewed as costly and time-consuming, the cost of not having adequate energy information exceeds the expense of collecting it since this heightens the risk of the implementation of inefficient policy settings. National targets, commitments and policy measures should be informed by relevant and up-to-date data. A data-driven policy cycle integrates relevant statistics and indicators in the whole process from design to monitoring and evaluation purposes. Without key data, countries face risks of inefficient and ineffective policy implementation due to the lack of a well-defined tracking methodology.

The links between high-quality and accessible energy data and their positive impacts are not always obvious or straightforward. For this reason, energy data may not be a priority area in terms of resource allocation. Yet, statistics should be viewed as a public good, deserving public financing to ensure the continuity of core operations and their adaptation to the evolving policy landscape.

Progress in the strategic collection of energy data has been continuous. Still, the IEA experience from across more than 150 countries shows that there are significant opportunities for improvement through data capacity development. For instance, while almost all 13 IEA association countries produce national energy balances (even if simplified), only two are able to provide data according to international standards using the IEA questionnaires. In addition, merely one third of the association countries can completely disaggregate the sectoral demand for all energy products, and less than half can produce data on traditional uses of biomass.

More generally, developing countries face difficulties in producing national energy balances. For example, the IEA work on the European Union-funded Energy sub‑Saharan Africa programme has found that in some sub-Saharan African countries data gaps are systematic, and demand surveys do not cover all sectors or are outdated. While biomass makes up almost 90% of the region’s energy mix, associated official data are available only in a handful of countries.

In order to help governments define their action plans to improve data, the IEA released a guidebook that for the first time describes the key components of energy data systems and provides recommendations to strengthening them.     

The guidebook draws on the quality frameworks developed for general cross-sectoral statistics, on worldwide best practices for strengthening energy statistics and on the IEA’s experience with international collaboration. Since 2022, IEA has been conducting consultations with national data providers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, Kenya, Morocco, Netherlands, Senegal, and the United Kingdom, as well as with experts from international organisations, to identify best practices adopted to design the strategy for energy data collection.

Despite the wealth of methodological guides available for energy data, few guidelines exist that focus on energy data strategy or provide pathways for producing robust energy data. The IEA guidebook fills this gap by offering a comprehensive framework for developing and assessing national energy data. It supports energy data providers and national institutions in aligning with international standards and methodologies.

The framework is structured into three core dimensions:

• PLAN: The strategic dimension, including data needs and users, strategy development, and funding mechanisms
• SETUP: The operational dimension, including legal framework, institutional arrangements, and human, technical, and financial resources
• TRACK: The data processing dimension, including data collection, methodology and quality verification, data management and innovation, and data access and dissemination.

Each dimension is divided into a series of three steps, described with the help of guiding questions, good practices and short- and medium-term recommendations. For example, systematic exchanges with data users are key to maintaining data production relevant (PLAN); countries may establish working groups, involving officials from statistical offices, ministries, and relevant agencies, and design appropriate data governance structures through institutional arrangements (SETUP); innovation is essential to optimising the use of often limited resources, with digitisation offering great and untapped opportunities for data processes (TRACK).

The guidebook also includes a comprehensive annex, which provides excerpts from interviews and written inputs by national stakeholders who were consulted in the process of drafting.

The guidebook is released along with an accompanying Microsoft Excel-based tool, which serves not only to assess the national energy system but also as a comprehensive resource for strategic action planning. It enables countries to understand the status of their national energy system and develop a tailored action plan based on identified priority areas.

This guidebook can be used by governments for two purposes: first, as an assessment tool to verify where the strengths and weaknesses are, and second, as a guide to develop a roadmap that serves as a strategic action plan. This is independent of the level of maturity of the energy information system in a country. The target countries for this guidebook are developing countries where energy information systems are still not fully developed.

Countries in the early stages of establishing their energy information systems should not get discouraged if the assessment reveals that several areas need further development. Improving energy data is a long-term process and should be addressed over time based on evolving priorities.

The national energy statistics roadmap should not be viewed as a strictly linear path to apply to the existing workflow, but as a feedback loop for continuous improvement. The loop starts with planning and ends with more concrete actions for gathering and producing energy data that is useful for crafting the right energy policies.

The IEA offers hands-on training for energy statisticians, analysts and others working on energy policy, as well as webinars and an online training programme. Since 2012, IEA has trained thousands of national statisticians through its various training programmes and collaborations with other international organizations. Based on this guidebook, the IEA developed a special workshop programme, piloted in Addis Ababa with selected countries from sub-Saharan Africa, and is working bilaterally with selected countries to support their roadmap development. The IEA is keen to support the ambitions of countries globally, by continuing to work with national institutions and providers of energy data on the strategy for collecting policy relevant data.