Abstract
An integrated environmental and operational evaluation model is constructed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine seven thermal power plants operating in Taiwan during 2001–2008. Inputs and desirable outputs along with undesirable outputs, including CO2, SOx, and NOx emissions, were simulated. A slack variable analysis was conducted to identify possible ways to improve the inefficient power plants. In addition, three models were compared to identify the actual magnitude of inefficiency. The results indicate that the integrated efficiency and production scale of some plants were inefficient during 2001–2008. Reductions in fuel consumption and CO2 emissions are identified as the major strategies to improve efficiency. Other options include modifying pre-existing management measures, installing pollution prevention controls and resizing the scale of the power plant. It is anticipated that the findings of this study will help policymakers to achieve better environmental and operational performance with regard to existing thermal power plants.
Highlights
Electricity is the foundation of a country’s national economic development and an essential element of daily modern life
An integrated environmental and operational evaluation model is constructed by data envelopment analysis (DEA) to examine seven thermal power plants operating in Taiwan during 2001–2008
Details of the basic CCR and BCC models can be found in our previous paper (Liu et al, 2010) in which we evaluated the power-generation efficiency of major thermal power plants in Taiwan by the DEA approach, and a stability test was conducted to verify the stability of the DEA model
Summary
Electricity is the foundation of a country’s national economic development and an essential element of daily modern life. Due to the rapid growth of Taiwan’s economy and industrial development, the electricity consumption has increased rapidly. It grew from 134,307 GWh in 1996 to 242,244 GWh in 2011, an average annual increase of 4.01%; while the annual growth rate of domestic energy consumption is only 3.27% (Bureau of Energy, 2012a). This shows that the growth rate of electricity consumption is higher than that of total energy consumption. The electricity sector is the most significant source of CO2 emissions in Taiwan
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