A Barrel Of Oil Equivalent (BOE) is a term used to summarize the amount of energy that is equivalent to the amount of energy found in a barrel of crude oil. By encompassing different types of energy resources into one figure, analysts, investors, and management can assess the total amount of energy the firm can access. This is also known as crude oil equivalent (COE). The use of BOEs helps to provide an apples-to-apples comparison between different forms or sources on energy. For example, if there are two firms evaluating a potential investment in wind power and one uses BOEs while the other uses kilowatt hours (kWh), they will be able to make an accurate comparison even though their units are different.The value for a BOE varies depending on which form or source on energy is being evaluated but typically ranges from 5-6 kWh/BOE for wind power up to 10-12 kWh/BOE for coal or natural gas fired electricity generation. The value also depends on how efficiently each type if conversion takes place - for example, it takes more than 6 kWh input to generate 1 BOE from solar panels currently but this number continues dropping as technology improves.Another important thing worth noting about BOEs is that they represent delivered Energy not just primary Energy production capacity like megawatts installed at a site - so when comparing two sites with very different characteristics (say offshore wind vs rooftop solar), it's important that both sides are using delivered Energy metrics rather than just raw output numbers.
