Should fuel consumed for electricity be allocated to generators differently than total fuel consumed?

[grgmiller]

Currently, when allocating fuel_consumed_mmbtu and fuel_consumed_for_electricity_mmbtu from the EIA-923 Generation and Fuel table to individual generators using the pudl.analysis.allocate_net_gen module, we allocate both using the same fraction.

However, in reviewing this code, the following question was raised (https://github.com/catalyst-cooperative/pudl/pull/1608#discussion_r933393357): Should these two values be allocated the same to generators? Would fuel consumed for electricity be proportional to total fuel consumption?

Some thoughts: I suppose that it is possible that the fuel consumed for electricity isn't proportionally split among generators, and that, for example, one generator produces all of the electricity, and another produces all of the heat. However, figuring out a method other than proportional allocation might be tricky.

I guess if you had complete information for all boilers and generators in the bf and gen tables, AND the fuel consumed for electricity was less than the total fuel consumed, maybe you could use the net generation data to somehow allocate the fuel consumed for electricity. For example, if there would be fuel consumed for electricity allocated to a generator that reports zero net generation, maybe you would consider that to be incorrect.

However, in the gf table, there are prime movers that report zero net generation but non zero fuel consumed for electricity, so not sure how well that method would work in all cases.