Abstract
How to achieve the continuous improvement of the environmental performance level of the power industry within the requirements of clean and low-carbon energy development is the fundamental requirement and inevitable choice for the construction of ecological civilization and sustainable development. From the perspective of environmental protection, based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and the internal mechanism of power system production and supply, the power industry environmental efficiency evaluation index system was constructed, and the two-stage Network Slack-based Measure (NSBM) model considering undesired output was used to calculate China’s 30 provinces and municipalities from 1998 to 2019. The environmental efficiency is divided into two links: power generation efficiency and transmission and distribution efficiency. The study found that, within the research interval, the overall environmental efficiency of China’s 30 provinces is low, and the differences between provinces and cities are large, but they have gradually developed in a better direction after 2015. The power generation efficiency of the first link in most provinces and municipalities is higher than the transmission and distribution efficiency of the second link, and the low transmission and distribution efficiency is an important reason for the low comprehensive level of environmental efficiency. The overall evolution trend of environmental efficiency in the six regions of China is roughly the same, but the regional differences are obvious, showing a trend of “high in the southeast and low in the northwest”. The economic and natural resource differences in different provinces and cities in each region have led to varying degrees of redundancy in five aspects, including investment in power assets, installed power generation capacity, and length of transmission lines, which seriously affect the environmental efficiency of the power industry. This research attempts to open the “black box” of the environmental efficiency conversion process of the power industry, which can provide directions and strategic suggestions for the improvement of the efficiency of the power industry in China.
Highlights
In order to explore the main reasons for the differences in the comprehensive level of environmental efficiency between provinces and cities, we must keep in mind that the power industry is a complex interconnected system, which mainly includes power generation, transmission, distribution, and sales, and the overall efficiency level is affected by multiple links
In order to explore the main reasons for the differences in the comprehensive level of environmental efficiency between provinces and cities, we must keep in mind that the power industry is a complex interconnected system, which mainly includes power generInt
This paper uses a two-link Network Slack-based Measure (NSBM) model to measure the environmental efficiency of the power industry in 30 provinces and municipalities in China from 1998 to 2019
Summary
The power industry is one of the most important energy-based industries for national development. It is the foundation and guarantee of modern social progress and national energy security. It is one of the main reasons of environmental pollution caused by the consumption of scarce fossil energy, such as coal. Affected by COVID-19, China’s entire society’s electricity consumption in 2020 was 7.511 trillion kilowatt-hours, and the growth rate of electricity demand has declined, with a year-on-year increase of 3.1%, but it is still on the rise compared with 2019. The installed capacity of power sources nationwide was 2.201 billion kilowatts, a year-on-year increase of 9.5%, of which coal-fired power generation capacity accounted for 56.58%, and clean energy accounted for 43.42%.
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