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.
Highlights
The severe fog and haze weather in winter in North China make urban and rural residents pay more attention to environmental problems [1]
We found that many centralized biogas production (CBP) projects were not recognized or adopted by rural residents, which was not conducive to the sustainability of this project
Income represents the economic source of the family, but high income does not indicate a high disposable income
Summary
The severe fog and haze weather in winter in North China make urban and rural residents pay more attention to environmental problems [1]. In the North China Plain (NCP), rural regions are vigorously promoting the "coal to gas" program. From 2000 to 2010, more than 40 million rural residents installed household biogas plants, and the average of annual growth rate was 18%. After 2012, the annual average growth rate of large and medium-sized biogas projects had exceeded 20% [4]. The models of large and medium-sized biogas stations in rural regions are economically feasible and have obvious economic, ecological, energy, and social benefits [5]. In China, there is a series of documents have been published to promote the utilization of biomass energy [6,7,8,9,10]. By 2035, the annual utilization of biomass gas is expected to reach about 25 billion m3 [11]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
