Investigation Of Effective Cooperations Between Energy Users And Energy Service Companies In Energy Performance Contracting

With the continuous efforts of promoting global low-carbon and environmental protection,the market of energy-saving has developed rapidly in recent years.As a result,Energy Performance Contracting(EPC)has been playing a more and more critical role in enhancing energy-saving around the world,especially in China.However,there are several cooperation problems hindering the successful development of EPC projects.For example,the dispute on the distribution of energy-saving benefits of EPC projects,lack of incentive in EPC projects,the inadequate subsidy and punishment policies from governments,and the reasonable allocation of government subsidy.The literature also tell that these cooperation problems between between energy users(EUs)and energy service companies(ESCOs)has become critical for affecting the overall performance of EPC projects and awaits further investigations.Based on the context of EPC projects with energy savings sharing mode carried out in China,this thesis focuses on the cooperation between EUs and ESCOs and attempts to answer the following four research questions.(1)In terms of the allocation of energy-saving benefits,the thesis designs the optimal allocation scheme considering the information situation owned by two parties,and further discusses the effects caused by various influential factors.Comparing with symmetrical information,the effort level of ESCOs under asymmetric information is lower,the project benefit of EUs is lower,and the project agency cost is higher.However,the study finds that the effort level of ESCOs can be effectively improved by introducing compensation information under asymmetric information condition.Therefore,the study optimizes the allocation scheme by integrating the compensation information into the EPC contract.After the optimization,EUs' project benefits would be improved and the project's agency costs effectively reduced.(2)In terms of the incentive problems in EPC project,the study designs a optimal incentive scheme by considering ESCOs' reputation effects.Comparing with the incentive situation that only relies on energy-saving benefits,the incentive contract considering reputation effect will encourage ESCOs to pay more attention to project cooperation outputs rather than energy-saving equipment endowment benefits.Furthermore,with the influence of reputation effects,ESCOs could make more efforts toward better EPC cooperation,which can also improve the single-phase project benefits of EUs,as well as the energy-saving performance of the whole project.(3)With regard to the government compensation and punishment problems in EPC projects,the study finds that EUs and ESCOs' passive participation behaviors cannot be restricted effectively by the contract terms and the ‘contract spirit'.It would be effective to introduce the government compensation and punishment mechanism to supervise the two parties' cooperation participation behaviors.By setting the project cooperation participation behavior standards and implementing compensation and punishment implements,the possibility for both parties to actively take part in the project cooperation can be promoted.In addition,when the government does not implement the compensation and punishment,effective supervision of the cooperative participation behavior of both parties in EPC projects can be achieved by adjusting the cooperation participation behavior standards.(4)As for the government subsidy allocation in EPC projects,the study reveals that the development of EPC could be guided by adjusting government subsidy's energy-saving quantity standards and the reasonable allocations of government subsidy.When the objective of government subsidy is to maximize EPC project's energy-savings,the optimal strategy is to distribute all subsidy to ESCOs;when the objective of government subsidy is to long-term development of EPC projects,the optimal strategy is to share the subsidies to the two parties;when the objective of government subsidy is to encourage EUs' adoption of EPC,the optimal strategy is to distribute all subsidy to EUs.In addition,the government can enhance the EPC project's energy-saving performance by enhance the energy-saving quantity standards.When considering F-S fairness perception of ESCOs,the allocation of government subsidies will be affected by the comparative perception of the subsidies as well.Based on the investigations,a deeper understanding about the cooperation problems and operating mechanism between ESCOs and EUs in EPC projects can be achieved.The findings also provide theoretical and practical insights,which are valuable for not only dealing with the cooperation problems in EPC projects,but also for guiding the government supervision problems in such projects.