Residents’ Willingness for Centralized Biogas Production in Hebei and Shandong Provinces

Qiang Wang, Thomas Dogot, Guosheng Wu, Xianlei Huang and Changbin Yin
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Qiang Wang: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Thomas Dogot: Department of Economics and Rural Development, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech, University of Liège, 5030 Gembloux, Belgium
Guosheng Wu: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Xianlei Huang: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China
Changbin Yin: Institute of Agricultural Resources and Regional Planning, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing 100081, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 24, 1-16

Abstract: Nowadays, in the North China Plain (NCP), most counties and suburban rural regions are promoting the "coal to gas" program under the situation of strong government support of large and medium-sized centralized biogas production (CBP) projects. This paper is aimed at the CBP projects, focuses on rural residents’ “willingness to use (WTU)”, “willingness to buy (WTB)” and the influencing factors for WTU/WTB. Through the analysis of rural residents from Hebei and Shandong provinces that belong to NCP in this survey, we find that 85% of respondents support the CBP program and the WTB is 63.15 CNY/year per capita, which is much lower than the cost of rural CBP in existing survey regions. The participation of rural residents is not only a manifestation of personal and family characteristics; understanding of environmental knowledge, attitudes, and household energy practices are more important. These non-economic factors seriously affect WTU/WTB. Hence, it is necessary to appropriately increase the government revenue to such projects, strengthen government guidance and publicity, improve the environmental knowledge and attitude of rural residents and guide residents’ practice. Based on a fully understanding of residents’ consumption decision mechanism, we establish a financial support mechanism due to the demand response, adopt a correct calculation for financial support, such as a reasonable subsidy rate, and seek the greatest commonality of cost, financial support, and demand.

Keywords: centralized biogas production (CBP); contingent valuation method (CVM); Heckman selection model; willingness to use (WTU); willingness to buy (WTB) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

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