Energy Balance of An Enterprise

a means of describing the relationship between the amounts of energy received and expended by an enterprise.

The income side of the energy balance provides a picture of energy sources according to type: mechanical energy produced by prime movers and electric energy obtained from outside the enterprise. The expenditure side of the balance indicates the principal ways in which energy is expended. Among these are the mechanical and electric energy consumed for production needs, including motive power and electrical processes. The expenditure side also shows expenditures of energy for the operation of the enterprise, energy consumed by the electric power plant, losses of electric energy, and energy distributed outside the enterprise. In order to draw up an energy balance it is necessary that a common unit of measure, such as the megacalorie, be used for all types of energy.

The data of an energy balance provides the basis for calculating several indexes. The ratio of the energy received from electric power plants and energy systems to the total amount of energy consumed by an enterprise—the coefficient of the centralization of the electric supply—indicates what part of the electric energy consumed is generated in specialized energy enterprises, where it is developed at the least cost. For the national economy as a whole, the coefficient of the centralization of electric energy generation is the ratio of the electric energy produced by electric power plants for general use and by unit plants to the total amount of electric energy generated in the country. In the USSR this coefficient was 81.2 percent in 1940 and 97.0 percent in 1976. Scientific and technological progress in industry is reflected in the increase in the proportion of electric energy in the total amount of energy consumed—the coefficient of electrification—and in the increase in the proportion of electric energy consumed in such production processes as electric casting, electric welding, and electrolysis.