4604.0 - Energy Account, Australia, 2011-12 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 26/11/2013   
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MEDIA RELEASE
26 November 2013
Embargo: 11.30 am (Canberra time)
206/2013

Households using less electricity, but using more energy overall

Australian households are using 12 percent less electricity than they were three years ago but four percent more energy overall, a report released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) shows.

"Electricity use by households has fallen 12 percent since 2008-09," said Mark Lound from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, "but total household energy expenditure on all forms of energy including natural gas, petrol, diesel, LPG, solar, wood and wood waste has gone up by nearly 60 percent.

"Households and manufacturing industry were the two largest domestic energy users, accounting for around one quarter of total energy use each, followed by transport and mining which used around 15 percent each,

"Overall, industry used nearly 3,000 petajoules in 2011-12, up slightly from the previous year and accounting for nearly three quarters of Australia's total energy use.

"Diesel and natural gas were the primary fuels for industry, at 23 percent each, followed by electricity at 21 percent.

"Renewable energy remains at two percent of domestic energy production in total, but solar's contribution increased by just over 20 percent between 2010-11 and 2011-12."

Australia remains a net energy exporter, and energy exports for 2011-12 were just over 14,000 petajoules, consisting mostly of coal (61 percent, or 8,516 petajoules), uranium (25 percent or 3,525 petajoules) and natural gas, (7 percent or 1,048 petajoules).

Today's figures are part of the ABS energy accounts program, a component of the environmental-economic accounting framework feeding into the National Accounts.

This release introduces additional data on energy stocks along with energy intensity data (the energy used to produce one unit of economic output). Consistent time-series data back to 2008-09 have now been added to the publication, and in mid 2014 the ABS will be releasing combined energy supply and use tables, which will present both energy in petajoules, monetary supply and use of energy products between industry and households. .

Further details can be found in Energy Account, Australia, 2011-12 (cat. no. 4604.0), available for free download from the ABS website - www.abs.gov.au.

Media notes:

  • When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.
  • One petajoule is approximately 277.7 million kilowatt hours.