Creating electricity satellite accounts

Currently there is a significant amount of work being put into reconciling models of the economy with models of the physical generation and transmission of electricity. Yet, there is a fundamental challenge which has not been addressed to date, and that is better capturing the electricity sector within the economic system of national accounts (SNAs). Generally in the SNA framework the electricity sector has been represented by a single aggregate sector representing generation, distribution, transmission and supply. In this paper, we set out the principals and construction of an electricity satellite account (ElSA) in which we improve the resolution of the electricity sector. We implement our suggested approach using data for Scotland, a good case study given that it has a diverse mix of generation technologies, detailed electricity statistics and formal set of economic accounts. Additionally, it is also part of a larger (Great Britain) electricity grid which has interesting aspects for the (interregional) trade in electricity. These accounts could be created for almost any nation or region in a standardised manner, given the availability of similar data.