Estimating E85 Consumption in 2013 and 2014

Dallas Burkholder, Office of Transportation and Air Quality, US EPA

November 2015

Summary

There are currently no comprehensive data sources on the amount of E85 sold in the United States. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) currently reports the volume of gasoline containing 55% ethanol of greater (Ed55) produced at large terminals, as well as gasoline produced by ethanol production facilities (much of which is likely E85). This data, however , is incomplete, as E85 produced at small blending facilities is not included in EIA’s surveys, and the gasoline production volumes reported by ethanol production facilities are net, rather than gross production (indeed, these volumes were negative in

prev ious years). Another potential source of data for E85 sales volumes is from individual states. Several states track E85 sales volumes for tax or other regulatory purposes. This data is comprehensive for the individual state where it is collected, but st ate E85 sales data
is limited. In an effort to estimate the volume of E85 used in 2013 and 2014 EPA has collected E85 sales data from each state where it is available. We have used this data, together with counts of the number of stations selling E85 in each state as reported by the state itself or from the Department of Energy’s Alternative Fuel Data Center (AFDC) to calculate the average volume of E85 sold per station per month for each state. We next used the average monthly sales per station for all states that reported E85 sales data (weighted by the number of stations selling E85 in each state) to estimate the average E85 sales per station per month. We finally used this monthly station average, together with the total number of stations selling E8 5 as reported by AFDC to estimate the number
volume of E85 sold in the United States in 2013 and 2014. Details of these calculations are
shown in Table 1 and Table 2 below. Based on the available data we estimate that 1 34 million gallons of E85 were sold in the US in 2013, and 1 73 million gallons were sold in 2014. A discussion of the uncertainty related to these estimates follows the tables.Table 1
Estimated E85 Sales in the United States in 2013

Table 2
Estimated E85 Sal es in the United States in 2014Uncertainties in these Estimates

While the calculations shown above consider all the available data, there is still some level of uncertainty associated with using this data to project total E85 use in the United States.
This uncerta inty is somewhat mitigated by the fact that while data is available from only 10% of the states, these states contain approximately 25% of the E85 stations in the United States. Because the data is from entire states it likely includes many diverse statio ns, both urban and rural. It is the case, however, that each of the states that provided EPA with E85 sales data provides some type of incentives at the state level for the sale of E85 within the

state. U sing data only from states that offer some type of incentive for E85 may tend to bias the estimates high. It is likely that the actual amount of E85 sold in the United States in 2013 and 2014 is slightly lower than the volumes estimated here. EPA has developed an
alternative method for projecting E85 sa les volumes that uses much of the same data as this document, but takes into account pricing information in 2014. 1 This method projects E85 sales volumes of approximately 150 million gallons in 2014. We believe this is a better
estimate of actual E85 sal es in this year.

1 “Correlating E85 consumption volumes with E85 price,” memorandum from David Korotney to docket EPA

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