Economic performance evaluation of bio-waste treatment technology at the facility level

Djavan De Clercq, Zongguo Wen and Fan Fei

Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 2017, vol. 116, issue C, 178-184

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to investigate the economic performance of a major Chinese biowaste treatment pilot project in Hainan province. Our methodology involved comprehensive on-site survey to collect economic performance data. Performance modelling tools used included net present value (NPV) analysis, internal rate of return, sensitivity analysis and uncertainty analysis based on Monte Carlo methods The results show that (1) weak economic performance in one of China’s most eminent biowaste projects: NPV was found to be negative at RMB – 115,311,390; and (2) sensitivity analysis showed that natural gas prices would need to be subsidized by 2.19 RMB/Nm3 for the project to break-even; (3) Monte Carlo analysis showed that the project had a probability of 86% to lose money. The policy implications for China are important: (1) capital and operating costs should be minimized in subsequent pilot project iterations; (2) subsidies towards the sale price of biomethane should be increased; and (3) the outputs produced by biowaste treatment plants should be further diversified. These policy implications are especially pertinent given that the surveyed case study is one of the newest and most advanced projects of its kind in China, and may serve as a model for the further development of biogas plants across China. For that reason, it is imperative that the identified economic issues are resolved quickly.

Keywords: Food waste; Biowaste; Biogas; Anaerobic digestion; Performance evaluation; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921344916302798
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:recore:v:116:y:2017:i:c:p:178-184

DOI: 10.1016/j.resconrec.2016.09.031

Access Statistics for this article

Resources, Conservation & Recycling is currently edited by Ming Xu

More articles in Resources, Conservation & Recycling from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kai Meng ().