Survey of Household Energy Use (SHEU)

Detailed information for 1997 (conducted in 1998)

The purpose of this survey is to provide Natural Resources Canada data on the energy use characteristics of private dwellings in Canada and on household use of energy resources. The data will allow Natural Resources Canada to assess the effectiveness of existing energy efficiency programs and to develop new ones.

Data release - October 6, 2000

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

Survey results will be used by Natural Resources of Canada to support the development of energy policy for the residential sector and to help design and evaluate specific energy efficiency programs. Energy analysts and utility companies may also have interest in this data.

Subjects

• Energy
• Energy consumption and disposition
• Families, households and housing
• Housing and dwelling characteristics

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is comprised of dwellings that were occupied as primary residences in the ten Canadian provinces and that fit into one of the following categories: single detached, semi-detached, row, or mobile. Specifically excluded from the survey's coverage were dwellings not mentioned above, dwellings located in a First Nation community or military base, businesses, institutions, demolished dwellings, dwellings under construction, seasonal or secondary residences, and dwellings occupied by individuals who work full-time within the Canadian Armed Forces.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a cross-sectional design.

Estimation

Weighting as for the LFS with two adjustments to account for the additional non-response to the supplementary survey and to account for independent projections by type of dwelling at the province level. This second readjustment also implicitly corrects for the fact that a sub-sample of the full LFS sample was used.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects that could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

In order to prevent any data disclosure, confidentiality analysis is done using the Statistics Canada Generalized Disclosure Control System (G-Confid). G-Confid is used for primary suppression (direct disclosure) as well as for secondary suppression (residual disclosure). Direct disclosure occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of or dominated by few enterprises while residual disclosure occurs when confidential information can be derived indirectly by piecing together information from different sources or data series.

Data accuracy

Response rate: 72.3%. Lower response in off-rotations. Low response to questions about make, model and number of various appliances.