Survey of Commercial and Institutional Energy Use (SCIEU)

Detailed information for 2009

The purpose of this survey is to collect detailed information on the energy demand and consumption patterns of Canadian businesses and institutions.

Data release - August 2, 2012

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

Statistics Canada, in partnership with Natural Resources Canada and Environment Canada, is conducting this survey to collect detailed information on the energy demand and consumption patterns of Canadian organizations and institutions and their buildings. This survey collects data on the types and quantities of energy (such as electricity, natural gas etc.) consumed by small, medium and large businesses and institutions in Canada.

One of the principal goals of Natural Resources Canada is to continually improve energy efficiency in Canada through various measures. Improving energy efficiency reduces greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change; a goal of Environment Canada. The survey will be used to assess how well Canada is fulfilling its commitment both to increasing energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Subjects

• Energy
• Energy consumption and disposition

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population is commercial and institutional establishments across Canada with at least 1 employee. Buildings with an area of which 50% or more is devoted to commercial and institutional activities, are also of interest. This survey does not include the residential or industrial sectors.

Instrument design

The survey questions were developed in consultation with Natural Resources Canada. The collection instrument for this survey is Computer Assisted Personal Interview (CAPI). There are three separate streams of the survey depending on the respondent reporting type - a) Establishment; b) Building; c) Hybrid (a single establishment building). A worksheet customized for each type is provided to respondents in advance of the CAPI and is designed to help the respondent prepare, and reduce the time required to complete the interview. The worksheets are collected at the end of the CAPI and returned to Statistics Canada for imaging. Questionnaire design specialists were consulted in the design and testing of the survey questions and the worksheets. The CAPI questions and worksheets (English and French) were directly tested with commercial and institutional establishments sampled from the Business Register. The content for the CAPI and worksheets was finalized in August 2010.

Sampling

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

Based on experience from previous iterations of the Commercial and Institutional Consumption of Energy Survey (CICES), a stratified random sampling of units has been undertaken. An overlapping sample with CICES was necessary to help neutralize variances caused by a non-homogeneous population. For the 2009 SCIEU survey, the sample contains a 40-50% overlap from 2007 and 2008 CICES. The remaining are new units birthed from the BR.

There is no current listing of buildings in Canada. As such, Statistics Canada developed a methodology to have a list built on an iterative process through pre-contact by collecting a buildings list or roster from establishment respondents. To build the list, respondents for establishments provided a contact for their building(s) and a list of the addresses for all of their business locations. This list will then be used by Statistics Canada to compile the building sample for the collection phase.

Survey Frame

The primary frame source for this survey is the Statistics Canada Business Register (BR). It is expected that half of the establishment component sample will be single establishment buildings (otherwise known as Hybrids). These respondents will be able to provide both establishment and building level information. The remaining units required for the building component, will be sampled from the list built through a listing exercise during pre-contact described in the Data Sources section.

In order to build a list of buildings for sub-sampling, establishment respondents will be asked at pre-contact to provide a list of buildings that they occupy. This will include the address and contact information for each building listed. This information will be used by the methodologists to generate the required sample for building respondents.

Sample Size
The sample size drawn for SCIEU 2009 pre-contact was approximately 7500 units across Canada. This pre-contact exercise was designed to confirm the establishment population (eg: address and best contact to complete the survey) and to develop a roster of buildings associated with the establishment for the purposes of sub-sampling for the CAPI. In the end, approximately 9000 units will be included in the sample for CAPI from three respondent types (establishment; building; hybrid).

Stratification
The stratification groupings for this survey are comprised of 19 frame industries; 5 regions (for Establishments) and 4 climate zones (for buildings). The industries covered have North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) starting with the following numbers 41, 49, 44 (except 445), 45, 445, 51-56, 621, 623, 624, 71, 721, 722, 48 and 81 (except 813110), 91, 6111-6117, 622, 813110.

Regional stratification (for establishments)
Atlantic (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI, Newfoundland and Labrador)
Québec
Ontario
Prairie (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta)
British Columbia

Climate zone stratification (for buildings):
Atlantic Canada (NB, NS, PEI, NL)
Great Lakes/St. Lawrence (includes Québec-Windsor corridor)
Pacific Coast (Vancouver, Victoria, Vancouver Island)
Other Regions (Includes the Prairies and the major centers of Edmonton, Calgary, Regina, Winnipeg, northern BC, northern Ontario, and northern Quebec).

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2010-11-29 to 2011-02-28

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents.

The questionnaire is a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CAPI) with data capture to occur at the time of the interview. Before the personal interview, research was done to obtain the telephone number of the person most capable of answering the survey questions. Then, pre-contact with these respondents was undertaken using a Computer Assisted Telephone Interview (CATI). During this phase, contact information and addresses were confirmed for the respondents' establishment and a roster of buildings associated with the establishment was created.

There are three different respondent types for the SCIEU 2009.
A building
An Establishment
A single establishment building (Hybrid)

Some of the building types of particular interest to this survey are:

Office building (non-medical)
Medical Office Building
Educational Institutions
Nursing and Residential Care Facility
Warehouse
Hotel and Motel
Hospitals and Medical Facilities
Food and Beverage Stores
Non-Food Retail Stores
Vacant

An Establishment
The Establishment survey is administered to establishments based on NAICS codes that, taken together, define the commercial sector of the Canadian economy.

A single establishment building (Hybrid)
This survey is administered where an establishment is the sole occupant of a building. This type of respondent will be administered the hybrid questionnaire. The hybrid is a combination of the establishment questionnaire and the building questionnaire.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s).

Error detection

The survey is in the post-collection phase and error detection is underway. Throughout the collection period, attention was given to the interviewer case remarks and notes to identify missing or incorrectly recorded values. Validity and consistency edits are being performed in the collection application to limit potential errors. There is ongoing review of the write-in fields of the questionnaire so that an efficient strategy can be developed for re-coding the responses.

In the post-collection stage, validity, distribution and consistency edits are being performed to identify incorrect, missing and invalid responses for usable records. There are many edit rules being created for this survey.

If a record has no response for one of the essential questions (mainly, type of energy source, square footage, building type), the record is not processed further, and is considered a non-respondent.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any data which would divulge information obtained under the Statistics Act that relates to any identifiable person, business or organization without the prior knowledge or the consent in writing of that person, business or organization. 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.

Confidentiality analysis includes the detection of possible "direct disclosure", which occurs when the value in a tabulation cell is composed of a few respondents or when the cell is dominated by a few companies. In SCIEU, all estimates created with five or fewer occupational records will not been released.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

This methodology does not apply to this survey.