Study On Environmental Regulation Of China 's Electric Power Industry

For a long time, the study of the electricity industry has been concentrated on economic regulation. However, because of the extensive development and thermal –based structure,electricity industry has become heavily polluting industry. So how to solve the negative externalities of electricity industry has become an important topic of environmental regulation.This paper has researched on the environmental regulation of electricity industry along the path of theoretical basis—regulation practice—efficiency test—the analysis—the path. This paper focuses on these questions:(1)Policy changes and tools selection in the environmental regulation of electricity industry. The paper reviews regulatory policies of the planned economy, the transition economy,the early market economy and the deeping reform,and it also analyzes the tools of the environmental regulation of electricity industry specificly.(2)Environmental efficiency evaluation on electricity industry.By DEA efficiency evaluation model,evaluating the environmental efficiency of electricity industry from the national level and the provincial level.(3)The main problems on the environmental regulation of electricity industry.This paper analyzes the problems in four aspects: the contradiction between economic benefits and ecological benefits,the difficulty in tools selections,the failure in the decentralization of environmental regulation,the contradiction between the market reform of electricity industry and environmental regulation.The conclution of the research:(1) Environmental regulation of electricity industry in China gradually shifts to source control from end of treatment and it changes qualitative regulation into quantitative regulation. The tools change administrative-directive-type into economic-lever-type.(2)The environmental efficiency on electricity industry generally showing a "U"-shaped curve at the national level.At the provincial level,different provinces have different environmental efficiency and the efficiency is low overall.At the same time,the environmental efficiency on electricity industry presents regional characteristics.The efficiency in the East is higer than the efficiency in the Middle and in the West,the efficiency in the Northeast is the lowest.(3) Because of the extensive development and thermal –based structure, environmental regulation of electricity industry faces the contradiction between economic benefits and ecological benefits. Administrative-directive-type tools can not solve the problems of information and incentive,making electricity corporates lack of endogenous incentives and external constraint.The unity of the goal of environmental protection can be undermined in the decentralization of environmental regulation. Local government officials pursue maximized political interests,just as the electricity corporates pursue maximized profit, making the failure in the environmental regulation.Meanwhile, it has trouble in inter-regional environmental cooperation. The competition in the cost of generation becomes the main content of market competition when it comes to bidding.The electricity corporates will choose to reduce the environmental investment to lower the cost of generation.The price of coal increases will lead to a substantial loss of electricity corporates when it has the contradiction between the price of coal and the price of electricity.It makes electricity corporates lose power and ability to protect the environment.(4)To improve the environmental regulation of electricity industry, the electricity industry can upgrade and optimize the structure by technical innovation,recycling and development of clean energy.Improving the tools of environmental regulation,getting rid of barriers in the mechanism and promoting the reform of electricity price aiso can improve the efficiency of environmental regulation.In short,combining qualitative analysis with quantitative analysis,normative analysis with empirical analysis,this paper does a systematic research on the environmental regulation of electricity industry in China.I hope that it can deepen the knowledge of environmental regulation of electricity industry.