Ton Of Oil Equivalent

The tonne of oil equivalent (toe) is a units of energy, unit of energy defined as the amount of energy released by burning one tonne of crude oil. It is approximately 42 joule, gigajoules or 11.630 Megawatt hour, megawatt-hours, although as different crude oils have different calorific values, the exact value is defined by convention; several slightly different definitions exist. The ''toe'' is sometimes used for large amounts of energy.

SI prefix, Multiples of the ''toe'' are used, in particular the megatoe (Mtoe, one million toe) and the gigatoe (Gtoe, one billion toe). A smaller unit of kilogram of oil equivalent (kgoe or koe) is also sometimes used denoting 1/1000 toe.

Definitions

The International Energy Agency defines one '' tonne of oil equivalent'' (toe) to be equal to:
*1 toe = 11.63 megawatt-hours (MWh)
*1 toe = 41.868 joule, gigajoules (GJ)
*1 toe = 10 gigacalories (Gcal) –
*1 toe = 39,683,207.2 British thermal units (BTU)
*1 toe = 1.42857143 Tonne of coal equivalent, tonnes of coal equivalent (tce)

Conversion into other units:
*1 toe = 7.33 Barrel of oil equivalent, barrels of oil equivalent (boe)

Some other sources and publications use divergent definitions of toe, for example:
*1 toe = 10.7 gigacalories (Gcal) –
*1 toe = 41.85 gigajoules (GJ)
*1 toe = 44.769 gigajoules (GJ) –
*1 toe = 39,683,205.411 British thermal units (BTU)

Conversion factors

*1 barrel of oil equivalent (boe) contains approximately 0.136 toe (i.e. there are approximately 7.33 boe in a toe).
*1 t Diesel fuel, diesel = 1.01 toe
*1 m³ diesel = 0.98 toe
*1 t petrol = 1.05 toe
*1 m³ petrol = 0.86 toe
*1 t biodiesel = 0.86 toe
*1 m³ biodiesel = 0.78 toe
*1 t bioethanol = 0.64 toe
*1 m³ bioethanol = 0.51 toe
*1 MWh = 0.086 toe (therefore 1 toe = 11630.0 kWh)
*At thermal power plants, 1 MWh is generated with 0.22 toe fuel or 0.39 MWh with 0.086 toeWorld Energy Council
(39% thermal to electrical conversion efficiency)

Tonne of oil equivalent should be used carefully when converting electrical units. For instance, BP's 2007 report used a factor of 38% efficiency (the average efficiency of OECD thermal generating units in 2006), or roughly 16 GJ per toe, when converting kilowatt-hours to toe.

Derived units

For multiples of the tonne of oil equivalent, it is more usual to speak of millions of tonnes of oil equivalent and kilotonnes of oil equivalent (ktoe).

See also

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* a unit of energy almost exactly 0.1 tonnes of oil equivalent

References

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External links

IEA's Unit Converter

Units of energy
Petroleum economics