A thorough critical analysis of the theoretical relationships between the bond-angle dispersion in a-Si,⌬ , and the width of the transverse optical Raman peak, ⌫, is presented. It is shown that the discrepancies between them are drastically reduced when unified definitions for ⌬ and ⌫ are used. This reduced dispersion in the predicted values of ⌬ together with the broad agreement with the scarce direct determinations of ⌬ is then used to analyze the strain energy in partially relaxed pure a-Si. It is concluded that defect annihilation does not contribute appreciably to the reduction of the a-Si energy during structural relaxation. In contrast, it can account for half of the crystallization energy, which can be as low as 7 kJ/mol in defect-free a-Si.