Published sunspot and calcium plage areas were examined for about 1,700 solar active regions (ARs) between 1971 and 1982. With these data, averaged AR properties, the possibility of energy balance between spot and facular emission over the lifetimes of activity complexes, and changes in AR properties over an 11-year sunspot cycle were studied. Overall energy blance can neither be established nor ruled out. Apparently, real temporal changes in the nature of ARs, however, imply either that energy balance cannot hold over periods shorter than a few years or that standard models for estimating irradiance fluctuations from spot and/or plage areas must be modified. ¿ American Geophysical Union 1987