Energy-saving and emission-abatement potential of Chinese coal-fired power enterprise: A non-parametric analysis

Chu Wei, Andreas Löschel and Bing Liu

Energy Economics, 2015, vol. 49, issue C, 33-43

Abstract: In the context of soaring demand for electricity, mitigating and controlling greenhouse gas emissions is a great challenge for China's power sector. Increasing attention has been placed on the evaluation of energy efficiency and CO2 abatement potential in the power sector. However, studies at the micro-level are relatively rare due to serious data limitations. This study uses the 2004 and 2008 Census data of Zhejiang province to construct a non-parametric frontier in order to assess the abatement space of energy and associated CO2 emission from China's coal-fired power enterprises. A Weighted Russell Directional Distance Function (WRDDF) is applied to construct an energy-saving potential index and a CO2 emission-abatement potential index. Both indicators depict the inefficiency level in terms of energy utilization and CO2 emissions of electric power plants. Our results show a substantial variation of energy-saving potential and CO2 abatement potential among enterprises. We find that large power enterprises are less efficient in 2004, but become more efficient than smaller enterprises in 2008. State-owned enterprises (SOE) are not significantly different in 2008 from 2004, but perform better than their non-SOE counterparts in 2008. This change in performance for large enterprises and SOE might be driven by the “top-1000 Enterprise Energy Conservation Action” that was implemented in 2006.

Keywords: Energy-saving potential; CO2 abatement potential; Weighted Russell Directional Distance Function; Coal-fired power enterprise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D24 L25 Q40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (32)

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Working Paper: Energy-saving and emission-abatement potential of Chinese coal-fired power enterprise: A non-parametric analysis (2015)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eneeco:v:49:y:2015:i:c:p:33-43

DOI: 10.1016/j.eneco.2015.02.002

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