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Measuring environmental efficiency of thermal power plants in China: an improved Malmquist–Luenberger index with materials balance principle

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Abstract

Improving environmental efficiency of thermal power plants is a crucial way to realize green and sustainable development. This paper investigates environmental efficiency of thermal power plants in China in 2011, 2013, and 2015 by conceptualizing a modified super-efficiency slacks-based measure with materials balance principle (MBP), which also eliminates the infeasibility in Malmquist–Luenberger index (MLI). An improved MLI is proposed based on the new efficiency measure. The results show that (1) the thermal power plants in most provinces have high environmental efficiency and productivity. (2) The improvement of productivity mainly originates from technical progress. This study provides a new perspective for environmental efficiency measurement on thermal power plants and advances related studies by (1) considering the first law of thermodynamics and introducing MBP in measuring environmental efficiency of thermal power plants and (2) defining a new MLI that captures the efficiency change and technical change in a super-efficiency framework. The thermal power plants in China can improve their environmental performance based on the results of current study.

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Availability of data and materials

The data that support the findings of this study are available from National Bureau of Statistics of China, but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of National Bureau of Statistics of China.

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Funding

The research is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 71871223, 72091515 and 91846301) and Innovation-Driven Planning Foundation of Central South University (2019CX041).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Business, Central South University, Changsha, 410083, Hunan, China

    Qingxian An, Jing Zhao, Xiangyang Tao & Zongrun Wang

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  1. Qingxian An
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  2. Jing Zhao
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  3. Xiangyang Tao
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  4. Zongrun Wang
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Contributions

Qingxian An: Methodology; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing; Funding acquisition; Project administration. Jing Zhao: Conceptualization; Formal analysis; Methodology; Supervision; Validation; Visualization; Writing (original draft); Writing (editing). Xiangyang Tao: Methodology; Writing (review and editing); Editing assistance. Zongrun Wang: Supervision; funding acquisition; project administration.

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Correspondence to Zongrun Wang.

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An, Q., Zhao, J., Tao, X. et al. Measuring environmental efficiency of thermal power plants in China: an improved Malmquist–Luenberger index with materials balance principle. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 42853–42867 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-13740-w

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