Natural Gas Consumption

End user: A firm or individual that purchases products for its own consumption and not for resale.

Gas Service Area: Geographic area where a gas utility distributes, or has distributed during an applicable reporting period, natural gas to customers.

Gas Utility: Any company that is (a) engaged in, or authorized to engage in, distributing or transporting natural gas or natural gas liquids (b) either owned or operated by a governmental public entity or regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

Natural Gas Consumption: Natural gas used by consumers across different sectors such as: residential, agriculture and water pump, commercial, industrial, mining, and TCU except for natural gas road vehicles, electric generation and co-generation use.

North American Industry Classification System (NAICS): For information about NAICS, visit NAICS webpage.

Planning Area: A geographic area developed by CEC staff, based on utility service territories and California’s electricity balancing authority areas, for use in the California Energy Demand Forecast.

Quarterly Fuel and Energy Report (QFER): The regulations under QFER involve the collection of energy data related to electricity and natural gas consumption. QFER reports are submitted on forms specified by the Energy Commission’s executive director.

Sales to end users:  Utility company purchases, transports, and direct sales to customers of the product.

Transmission access charge (TAC): Portion of the California ISO-controlled grid where transmission revenue requirements are recovered through an access charge. 

Therm: Unit of energy, typically used for natural gas.

Transported Gas: Natural gas physically delivered to a place by a local utility, but not purchased from that utility.

Agency Types:

Investor- owned utility (IOU): Large electric distributors that issue stock owned by shareholders. Almost three-quarters of utility customers get their electricity from these companies. IOUs are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).

Publicly owned utility (POU): Publicly- owned utilities are not-for-profit agencies that supply and deliver electricity to their communities. POUs are either run municipally or as political subdivisions.  

Western Area Power Administration (WAPA): one of four power marketing administrations within the U.S. Department of Energy whose role is to market and transmit wholesale electricity from multi-use water projects.   

Energy Use Sectors

Agricultural and water pumping: Electricity or Natural Gas used for crop farming fisheries, forestry, poultry production, water supply and irrigation activities.  

Commercial Other or TCU (Transportation, Communications, & Utilities): Energy used to support transportation, communications, and utilities such as power generation and distribution.

Commercial Sector: Electricity or Natural Gas used for nonmanufacturing establishments primarily engaged in the sale of goods or services such as hotels, schools/colleges, offices, restaurants, wholesale, warehouse, healthcare, retail stores and other service enterprises.

Energy Use Sectors:  A group of major energy-consuming components. The sectors most commonly referred to at the CEC are residential, commercial, industrial, mining agricultural and water pumping, and Commercial Other or TCU (Transportation, Communications, & Utilities).

Industrial Sector: Electricity or Natural Gas used for industrial activities including the manufacture of goods, printing, publishing, machinery, iron and steel, non-ferrous metals, chemical and mineral products.

Mining Sector: Electricity or Natural Gas used for activities such as oil and gas extractions, and other mineral extractions, coal, metal and nonmetal mining, construction.

Residential Sector: Electricity or Natural Gas used in private dwellings, including apartments, for heating, air-conditioning, cooking, water heating, and another household uses.

Data last updated: November 1st, 2023

Data Collection Information
The Data Collection and Analysis Unit analyzes data derived from the QFER CEC-1308B form. The CEC-1308B is collected from energy companies that provide gas services in California. This form includes information on energy retail sales (or delivery amounts) by California's residential, commercial, industrial, and agricultural customers. QFER staff prepares total natural gas consumption information from various data sources using Microsoft Access, Microsoft Excel, and other tools.

This dashboard provides the amount of natural gas delivered to end-use customers by California Gas Utilities and Interstate Pipelines companies. As of 2023, companies that submit data to the CEC include four IOUs, 5 POUs, and 2 pipeline companies.

Methodologies data calculations: 
Data is reconciled so that the annual balance matches the sum of the twelve months balance. Data with “unclassified” category such as unknown NAICS codes or unknown counties is reassigned to the commercial buildings, industrial and commercial other (TCU) sectors based on weighted sectoral sales. Other discrepancies may exist between utilities report and data reported to the EIA. In that case, staff will revise previous data as needed.

Citing
Please cite use of these data and images. California Energy Commission [Year]. California Energy Commission [Dashboard Title] Data last updated [insert date last updated]. Retrieved [insert date retrieved] from [Dashboard URL]