It is very important for electric utility to determine dominant sectors which have more impacts on electricity consumption in national economy system. In this paper, an input-output perspective and methodology is proposed to handle this issue. The input-output table of electricity demand (IOTED) is put forward based on the input-output table of national economy (IOTNE). The relevancy of electricity demand in various sectors is revealed by means of electricity consumption chains (ECCs), which are key components in the IOTED. Besides, a new concept, electricity demand multiplier (EDM), is presented to identify dominant sectors imposing great impacts on electricity demand quantitatively. In order to testify the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, a case based on provincial economy system in China is studied. Dominant sectors are identified and discussed. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.