[Federal Register Volume 88, Number 209 (Tuesday, October 31, 2023)]
[Notices]
[Pages 74483-74486]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2023-23999]


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DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY

Energy Information Administration


Agency Information Collection Proposed Extension

AGENCY: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Department of 
Energy (DOE).

ACTION: Notice and request for comments.

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SUMMARY: EIA invites public comment on the reinstatement with changes 
to the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) Forms EIA 457-A, D, 
E, F, and G under OMB Control Number 1905-0092, as required under the 
Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995. RECS collects data on energy 
characteristics, consumption, and expenditures for the residential 
sector of the United States and is comprised of five forms including: 
Form EIA 457-A Household Survey, Form EIA 457-D Energy Supplier Survey: 
Household Propane Usage, Form EIA 457-E Energy Supplier Survey: 
Household Electricity Usage, Form EIA 457-F, Energy Supplier Survey: 
Household Natural Gas Usage,

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Form EIA 457-G Energy Supplier Survey: Household Fuel Oil or Kerosene 
Usage. These forms will be used to produce household energy usage 
estimates for calendar year 2024.

DATES: EIA must receive all comments on this proposed information 
collection no later than January 2, 2024. If you anticipate any 
difficulties in submitting your comments by the deadline, contact the 
person listed in the ADDRESSES section of this notice as soon as 
possible.

ADDRESSES: Submit comments electronically to Chip Berry by email at 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#89eae1e0f9a7ebecfbfbf0c9ece0e8a7eee6ff"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="781b101108561a1d0a0a01381d1119561f170e">[email protected]</span></a>.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Chip Berry, U.S. Energy Information 
Administration, by telephone at (202) 586-5543, or by email at 
<a href="/cdn-cgi/l/email-protection#294a414059074b4c5b5b50694c4048074e465f"><span class="__cf_email__" data-cfemail="eb8883829bc5898e999992ab8e828ac58c849d">[email protected]</span></a>. The proposed forms and instructions are available 
on EIA's website at www.eia.gov/survey/#eia-457.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This information collection request 
contains:
    (1) OMB No.: 1905-0092;
    (2) Information Collection Request Title: Residential Energy 
Consumption Survey;
    (3) Type of Request: Reinstatement with changes;
    (4) Purpose: The RECS is a nationwide study of energy use in 
housing units and includes a series of data collections from households 
and household energy suppliers. RECS results include official 
statistics about the energy characteristics, consumption, and 
expenditures of U.S. homes. In addition to statistics produced directly 
from surveys of households and energy suppliers, EIA leverages the RECS 
survey information to model and produce energy end-use estimates (e.g., 
natural gas water heating consumption). EIA has conducted the RECS 
periodically since 1978 and the 2024 RECS will be the 16th data 
collection for the program.
    Form EIA 457-A: Household Survey collects information on the 
presence and characteristics of a wide range of energy-consuming 
devices in homes, including space heating and cooling equipment, 
appliances, and electronics. The Household Survey also asks respondents 
about key structural features and demographic characteristics that 
impact energy usage. Forms EIA 457-D, E, F, and G: Energy Supplier 
Surveys collect monthly electricity and natural gas billing data from 
Household Survey-respondent energy suppliers (e.g., utilities), and 
periodic propane and fuel oil delivery data from bulk fuel suppliers.
    RECS is integral to EIA's mandate to collect and publish energy 
end-use consumption data. RECS estimates represent the most 
comprehensive national and state-level results available on energy 
consumption in homes. RECS is a key, benchmark data series that allows 
policy makers and program implementers in both public and private 
organizations to analyze trends in energy consumption for the 
residential sector. RECS fulfills planning, analyses, and decision-
making needs of DOE, other Federal agencies, state governments, 
utilities, researchers, and energy analysts in the private sector.
    In addition to annual RECS estimates produced for all prior 
studies, EIA intends to release sub-annual (e.g., monthly) energy 
consumption and expenditures estimates from the 2024 RECS. These 
estimates would be derived from monthly energy bills collected on the 
Energy Supplier Survey forms and modeled energy end-use outputs.
    (4a) Proposed Changes to Information Collection: For the 2024 RECS, 
EIA intends to field a series of local-area samples in select 
metropolitan and county areas around the country. These additional 
samples in approximately 8-10 local areas will support EIA's efforts to 
expand its demand-side energy data program to produce energy-use 
results for more granular geographic and demographic communities.
    EIA proposes to update the Household Survey to reduce respondent 
burden, improve response quality, and update questions to reflect 
current energy trends. EIA is proposing the following questionnaire 
updates based on data quality analysis of the prior RECS, changes in 
the residential housing market, and stakeholder feedback. Proposed new 
questions reflect EIA's effort to collect the most relevant information 
necessary to estimate household energy use and to inform energy end-use 
estimation. Proposed question revisions should improve response 
quality, minimize reporting burden, and reflect changes in technology. 
EIA proposes deleting questions with poor response quality from the 
last collection or where data are now available from alternative 
sources.

Household Survey (EIA 457-A)

    Question additions:
    <bullet> (Your Home) Add a question asking how many months a 
respondent's pool is heated. Heating pools can use a significant amount 
of energy, so knowing the extent of heating will facilitate better pool 
energy consumption and expenditures estimation.
    <bullet> (Space Heating) Reinstate a follow-up question for 
respondents using heat pumps for space heating that asks if the 
equipment is also used for air conditioning. This question allows EIA 
to better capture heat pumps used for both space heating and air 
conditioning.
    <bullet> (Space Heating and Air Conditioning) Reinstate a question 
in the air-conditioning section that asks how much respondents use 
their cooling equipment, as well as add a similar question in the space 
heating section. These behavioral questions are important for EIA to 
gauge the use of energy-intensive equipment relative to similar homes, 
especially in temperate climates or climates where heating or cooling 
may not be used often.
    <bullet> (Water Heating) Add a question about the presence of heat 
pump water heaters. Heat pump water heaters are an emerging technology 
that can significantly impact consumption and expenditures in a home.
    <bullet> (Water Heating) Add a question about the backup fuel for 
solar thermal water heaters. EIA asks about the presence of solar 
thermal water heaters, but no information is currently collected about 
backup fuels for that equipment. This question will support more 
accurate estimates of household water heating consumption and 
expenditures.
    <bullet> (Energy Bills) Add a question about the number of solar 
panels if a respondent indicates that they have on-site solar 
generation. Expanding the series of questions to better capture the 
size of a home's solar array will improve EIA's estimates of on-site 
solar generation and related consumption.
    <bullet> (Electric Vehicles) Add a question asking about the number 
of electric vehicles owned.
    <bullet> (Energy Insecurity) Add a question about a respondent's 
inability to pay the full amount of energy bills. While EIA gathers 
information about people forgoing expenses to help pay for energy bills 
and information about the receipt of disconnection notices, there's a 
gap in knowledge about people who still face difficulties with energy 
bills but pay enough to not receive a notice.
    <bullet> (Final Questions) Reinstate a series of questions on the 
consumption of propane and fuel oil. This reinstated series will 
supplement information collected from energy suppliers, filling in gaps 
in the data collection and allowing for additional quality checks for 
bulk fuel consumption and expenditures.
    <bullet> (Final Questions) Ask respondents for their solar company, 
also known as an inverter company or third-party operator, if they have 
on-site solar generation. This question may be used

[[Page 74485]]

to capture solar capacity and generation directly from the data source 
and improve EIA's estimates of consumption and expenditures for homes 
with solar panels.

Revisions

    <bullet> (Appliances) Add an option to all appliance-usage 
questions for ``rarely used/used less than once a week.'' This 
additional response option will allow EIA to differentiate between low, 
but consistent usage (e.g., ``once a week'') and near-zero or 
infrequent usage of clothes dryers, dishwashers, and cooking equipment.
    <bullet> (Appliances) Add a response option to the range fuel 
question. Propane dual-fuel ranges are common enough to warrant this 
change and should be differentiated from natural gas dual-fuel ranges.
    <bullet> (Electronics) Convert the question about external monitors 
to a numeric response question. In the 2020 RECS, EIA included a 
question about use of external monitors as part of the series of 
questions related to teleworking. This question will be moved from that 
series and added to the list of questions about computers. We will also 
modify the question to ask for a numeric response.
    <bullet> (Space Heating) Reinstate questions that capture third 
sources of space heating. These questions were removed for the 2020 
self-administered questionnaire to conserve space on the paper 
instrument. However, there were respondents in the 2020 RECS who 
indicated using more than two types of equipment. Space heating is the 
most energy-intensive end-use in homes and capturing these additional 
heating sources will improve EIA's estimates of heating consumption and 
expenditures.
    <bullet> (Space Heating) Reinstate a response option for a 
fireplace as a main heating equipment source. For the 2020 RECS, enough 
respondents indicated this as a main heating source in open-ended 
responses to warrant adding this option to the response list.
    <bullet> (Space Heating) Reinstate a more comprehensive response 
option list for secondary heating equipment. For 2020 RECS, enough 
respondents indicated additional equipment in open-ended responses to 
warrant adding these options to the response list. This equipment 
included furnaces and heat pumps as secondary space heating sources.
    <bullet> (Space Heating) Allow respondents to indicate using both 
wood cords and wood pellets.
    <bullet> (Energy Bills) Reword the question on whether respondents 
have an outlet that is accessible by a car. Currently, the question 
asks about outlets in range of where a respondent parks their car, but 
if the respondent doesn't have a car, then they might have difficulty 
answering.
    <bullet> (Energy Bills) Reinstate a series of questions about 
miscellaneous devices that typically consume large amounts of energy if 
used by a household. These devices include air purifiers, water 
softeners, sump pumps, well pumps, power tools, large aquariums, and 
engine block heaters.
    <bullet> (Electric Vehicles) Revise the detailed list of response 
options about where the respondent charges an electric vehicle. EIA 
intends to implement the more limited response options suggested as 
part of EIA's testing of EV-owning households.
    <bullet> (Household Characteristics) Revise household income 
response options to reflect more current distributions of income 
ranges.

Deletions

    <bullet> (Your Home) Remove the question asking about the total 
number of household members. This question is redundant, because EIA 
already asks questions about how many adults and how many children live 
in the home. We give these detailed questions primacy when there are 
inconsistencies in responses.
    <bullet> (Your Home) Remove the question asking respondents if they 
had natural gas available in their neighborhood. This question is only 
relevant to respondents who did not already report using natural gas. 
Response quality issues, including high missing rates and inconsistent 
responses, warrant removal.
    <bullet> (Appliances) Remove a question about the number of months 
a respondent used a secondary refrigerator. Responses were inconsistent 
and it is unlikely that respondents only use refrigerators for part of 
the year.
    <bullet> (Appliances) Remove a series of questions about smaller 
kitchen appliances. For most households, toasters, blenders, slow 
cookers, and similar food-preparation devices do not constitute a 
significant portion of energy consumption and expenditures. EIA intends 
to use the space in the questionnaire occupied by these questions for 
ones about more energy-intensive devices.
    <bullet> (Electronics) Remove a series of questions about the use 
of equipment for teleworking and online education. These questions were 
added at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to only assess a 
potential change in household consumption due to the pandemic. We will 
retain the question about external monitors, with modifications.
    <bullet> (Electronics) Remove the VCR question. This technology is 
no longer used by a significant number of households and their energy 
consumption accounts for very little of the total energy use in homes.
    <bullet> (Electronics) Remove questions about how TVs are used. 
These questions were added for the 2020 RECS but were not used by EIA 
to estimate TV and TV peripheral energy use. The questions about the 
number of hours of use of each TV are sufficient for EIA's energy-use 
estimation.
    <bullet> (Water Heating) Remove a question about whether 
respondents use a water-heater blanket. This question has had repeated 
data quality issues, included a high missing rate in the 2020 RECS.
    <bullet> (Energy Bills) Remove a series of questions about non-
solar renewable energy. On-site residential wind energy generation and 
combined heat and power systems are rare. EIA will continue to consider 
these questions in the future.
    <bullet> (Household Characteristics) Remove the question asking 
about the sex of the respondent. Analysis has shown that the sex of the 
respondent is not predictive of differences in household energy use. 
Additionally, the question as currently worded is measuring an outdated 
binary gender construct.

Energy Supplier Surveys (EIA 457 D-G)

    <bullet> EIA proposes to reduce the number of months of bills or 
fuel deliveries collected on the Energy Supplier Survey forms from 24 
months to 16 months. Collecting 24 months of bills for the 2020 RECS 
was necessary to evaluate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on energy 
use in households. The additional eight months of bills are no longer 
needed, and 16 months of billing and fuel delivery data is sufficient 
for 2024 RECS estimation.

Pretesting Interviews

    <bullet> EIA would like to conduct up to 100 pretesting interviews 
to assess the clarity of the RECS questions and instructions. This will 
help improve the next iteration of RECS by obtaining respondent 
feedback regarding their experience completing RECS.
    (5) Annual Estimated Number of Respondents: 6,390;
    (6) Annual Estimated Number of Total Responses: 6,390;
    (7) Annual Estimated Number of Burden Hours: 4,443;
    (8) Annual Estimated Reporting and Recordkeeping Cost Burden: The 
annualized cost of the burden hours is

[[Page 74486]]

estimated to be $388,140 (4,443 hours times $87.36 per hour). EIA 
estimates that respondents will have no additional costs associated 
with the surveys other than the burden hours and the maintenance of the 
information during the normal course of business.
    Comments are invited on whether or not: (a) The proposed collection 
of information is necessary for the proper performance of agency 
functions, including whether the information will have a practical 
utility; (b) EIA's estimate of the burden of the proposed collection of 
information, including the validity of the methodology and assumptions 
used, is accurate; (c) EIA can improve the quality, utility, and 
clarity of the information it will collect; and (d) EIA can minimize 
the burden of the collection of information on respondents, such as 
automated collection techniques or other forms of information 
technology.
    Statutory Authority: 15 U.S.C. 772(b) and 42 U.S.C. 7101 et seq. 
Section 13(b) of the Federal Energy Administration Act of 1974, Pub. L. 
93-275, codified as 15 U.S.C. 772(b) and the DOE Organization Act of 
1977, Pub. L. 95-91, codified at 42 U.S.C. 7101 et seq.

    Signed in Washington, DC, on October 26, 2023.
Samson A. Adeshiyan,
Director, Office of Statistical Methods and Research, U.S. Energy 
Information Administration.
[FR Doc. 2023-23999 Filed 10-30-23; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6450-01-P


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