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China’s power supply chain sustainability: an analysis of performance and technology gap

  • S.I. : OR for Sustainability in Supply Chain Management
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Abstract

The power industry is a major source of carbon emissions in China and it is vital, therefore, to address the industry to promote carbon emission reduction. This study takes the power supply chain (PSC) in China, composed of coal-fired thermal power plants and downstream power grid enterprises as its primary research object. From the perspective of sustainable development, the study explores and analyzes the sustainable performance and technology heterogeneity of China’s provinces’ PSCs, proposing the two-system model to evaluate the sustainable performance, generation performance and sale performance of PSCs. In addition, to understand the technology level of PSC, this study applies the meta-frontier technique to analyze the technology heterogeneity of all PSCs across different regions. The proposed models are then applied to analyze the sustainable performance of China’s provincial PSCs. The empirical results demonstrate the market-oriented reform of the power industry in China played a role in promoting the development of power generation enterprises in China’s PSCs but had a limited effect on the power grid enterprises in the PSC. The study also shows that there are significant regional differences in the sustainable performance and technology of China’s PSC. Generally, PSCs in Eastern China have a high level of sustainable performance and technology, while the sustainable performance and technology of the PSCs in Central and Northeast China are relatively poor. Based on these empirical results, specific policy recommendations are presented to improve PSC’s sustainable performance and technology levels at government and enterprise levels.

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Acknowledgements

The authors sincerely thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. This research is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the grant nos. 71871153, 71971027, 71501139, 91746110 and 71521002; National Key Research and Development Project of China under the grant no. 2018YFB1701802; Bei**g Philosophy and Social Science Foundation under the grant no.19JDGLB017; the Special Items Fund of Bei**g Municipal Commission of Education. Jiasen Sun thanks the sponsorship of Jiangsu Overseas Visiting Scholar Program for University Prominent Young and Middle-aged Teachers and Presidents.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Economics and Management, Nan**g University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nan**g, China

    Jiasen Sun

  2. Research Center for Smarter Supply Chain, Business School, Soochow University, Suzhou, China

    Jiasen Sun

  3. School of Management and Economics, Bei**g Institute of Technology, Bei**g, China

    Guo Li

  4. Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research, Bei**g Institute of Technology, Bei**g, China

    Guo Li

  5. Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Bei**g, Bei**g, China

    Guo Li

  6. Centre for Business in Society, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Ming K. Lim

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  1. Jiasen Sun
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Correspondence to Guo Li.

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Sun, J., Li, G. & Lim, M.K. China’s power supply chain sustainability: an analysis of performance and technology gap. Ann Oper Res (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10479-020-03682-w

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