Data Resources - Genscape

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Weekly Coal Burn Report (US)

Report Methodology Sample Report -Adobe PDF

Report Description

Coal is the one fuel that has lacked timely transparency of market fundamentals. Unlike in the oil and natural gas arenas, coal producers, traders and users have had to wait for months for production, consumption and stock figures. By the time these figures are published, they are no longer relevant.

The new coal data set from Genscape addresses this problem. The data accurately estimates coal-burn at the nation’s major utilities on a weekly basis, and thus provides clear guidance on the fundamentals of the market.

How does it work? The Genscape observed output of coal plants closely matches the output reported by plant operators to the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. Using those estimates and the most recent coal-burn figures reported by plant operators, Genscape calculates the tonnage of coal burned to generate observed electricity output. This approach yield results that are very close to the reported historical figures.

See chart ›

A detailed description of the approach can be found in the methodology. The table below shows the monthly variance of published Genscape figures versus the EIA numbers for the same set of plants.

Region	2006-1	2006-2	2006-3	2006-4	2006-5	2006-6	2006-7	2006-8	2006-9
Mid-Atlantic	3%	5%	4%	2%	-5%	-3%	-2%	-1%	4%
EN Central	5%	6%	4%	3%	-7%	1%	2%	0%	-1%
WN Central	-6%	-2%	-4%	2%	-13%	-6%	-3%	-4%	2%
S. Atlantic	-4%	-3%	-3%	-3%	-10%	-1%	1%	1%	2%
ES Central	-3%	2%	2%	5%	-3%	-1%	-1%	-4%	-4%
WS Central	0%	0%	2%	-1%	-8%	-3%	-2%	-3%	-3%
Mountain	0%	5%	5%	4%	-6%	3%	5%	5%	4%
National	0%	2%	2%	1%	-8%	1%	0%	0%	1%