Cleaner production assessment of coal-fired power plant based on DEA

Coal-fired power plants are the main pollution source in most parts of China. The implementation of cleaner production in coal-fired power plants is necessary for environmental protection and also an effective way of energy saving and emission reduction. This paper reviews the researches of cleaner production of coal-fired power plants in China and makes a survey on major studies of cleaner production assessment (CPA) methods and models. CPA is the basis for cleaner production technological innovation and cleaner production audit. We set up an input and output index system for the CPA of coal-fired power plant and an evaluation model of cleaner production is constructed on the basis of data envelopment analysis (DEA). In addition, an empirical analysis of the model is carried out with field survey data. The result shows that the assessment model based on DEA not only can be used to set up a cleaner production benchmarking, but also can be used to evaluate the performance of cleaner production for coal-fired power plants. In addition, this evaluation model can be served as a foundation for the improvement of cleaner production of a power plant.