INTRODUCTION

A diverse range of electricity and gas business activity has emerged from the de-regulation of the 1990's. The publicly-owned monopolies were commercialised and disaggregated into separate smaller businesses. New businesses entered the energy market and existing businesses diversified - with some electricity suppliers entering the gas supply market and some gas suppliers entering the electricity market. Technical Note 1 provides more detail on recent electricity and gas market reforms.

This publication provides insight into the impact of recent reforms on business structure and activity. Estimates are provided for total electricity supply and total gas supply (with gas supply defined as the alternative view of gas supply; ANZSIC 2006 codes 0700, 5021 and 2700). These are further broken down by type of business with:

Electricity supply estimates provided for:

• Businesses engaged in electricity supply (but not gas supply)
• Businesses engaged in supplying both electricity and gas.

Gas supply estimates provided for:

• Businesses engaged in gas supply (but not electricity supply)
• Businesses engaged in supplying both gas and electricity.

Estimates are presented of the key economic, financial and physical measures associated with the supply of electricity and gas to the Australian economy. For the year 2007-08 the physical measures of electricity supply and gas supply are illustrated by way of a supply chain diagram. The estimates provide an 'alternative' view of electricity supply and gas supply within Australia.

Estimates are provided for each electricity supply and gas supply business activity. Electricity supply activities are defined to comprise electricity generation, electricity transmission, electricity distribution, electricity wholesaling and retailing activities. Gas supply activities are defined to include gas extraction, gas pipeline transportation, and gas distribution (which includes gas wholesaling and gas retailing activities).

The alternative view ANZSIC coverage is shown in Table 1.1.

1.1 Electricity and gas supply activity: alternative view ANZSIC 2006 coverage
Alternative View Activity	ANZSIC 2006 Division	ANZSIC 2006 Class
Electricity Supply
Generation	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2611 - Fossil Fuel Electricity Generation, 2612 - Hydro-Electricity Generation and 2619 - Other Electricity Generation
Transmission	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2620 Electricity Transmission
Distribution	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2630 Electricity Distribution
Wholesaling / Retailing	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2640 On-selling Electricity and Electricity Market Operation
Gas Supply
Extraction	B Mining	0700 Oil and Gas Extraction
Transmission	I Transport, Postal and Warehousing	5021 Pipeline Transport
Distribution	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2700 Gas Supply
Wholesaling / Retailing	D Electricity, Gas, Water and Waste Services	2700 Gas Supply

It is important to note that this alternative view is presented not to address any flaw in the ANZSIC 2006 classification system, but rather to provide users with further insight into electricity and gas supply activities - as such it is intended to supplement ANZSIC 2006 industry statistics.

The incorporation of gas extraction activity and gas transport activity into the alternative gas supply view effectively increases the size of Gas Supply relative to the industry view. This is the result of reclassification of relevant ANZSIC 2006 classes and not an extension of ANZSIC 2006 class boundaries. Technical Note 2 discusses the concept of an alternate view, and Technical Note 3 the methodology used in this publication.

While alternative view estimates are subject to the limitation that they cannot be compared on a 'like basis' with existing industry statistics they can, nevertheless, provide useful analytical insight to a segment of the economy of interest (such as electricity and gas supply).

The data source used to produce the alternative view estimates was Australian Industry, 2007-08 (cat. no. 8155.0)(see both the publication, and the attached data cubes, which contain the data from the 2007-08
Energy Supply Survey).

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