Study On Shadow Pricing Based Charge Rate Scheme For Urban Wastewater Treatment Upgrading

The construction and operation of urban wastewater treatment plant is an effective way to solve the water crisis in China, and the centralized processing of municipal sewage treatment becomes more and more important in improving water quality and securing national water safety, the National Twelfth Five-Year Plan of environmental protection program specially places a high value on "promoting the sewage treatment standard". In order to enforce the Grade A pollutants emission Standard of Urban Wastewater Treatment Firm (GB18918-2002), municipal sewage treatment plant has entered a substantive stage to upgrade and transformative technology. But the cost is too high for the government to bear, so it’s time to reform on the price of sewage treatment to ensure the steady operation after the upgrade. It’s an important task to grasp the charge rate scheme of sewage treatment and guide the marketization of the industry on track gradually, and also make sure the process is scientific and applicable.This research discusses on the price standard adjustment of sewage treatment after the technology upgrade taking for the current sewage treatment pricing policy as a breakthrough point and applying the Production theory and DEA technology to analyze the sewage treatment charge rate for upgrading in theoretically and practically. This study used an output directional distance function method, which based on productional framework, to estimate the shadow price of effluent pollutants in the data from the national pollution census. It calculated the price-adjusting scheme of the sewage treatment fee with the premise that initial discharge of sewage treatment plant is secondary based on shadow price, which replaces the administrative order and experience practices.The results may lay the basis for reforming te wastewater treatment charge standard system.This paper has reached several conclusions:(1) The charge rate scheme for urban wastewater treatment upgrading can be calculated based on shadow pricing model. From a national perspective, if the initial discharge of sewage treatment moves from secondary to first B, the unit price of sewage treatment in the country will increase by0.81yuan/m3; if the initial discharge of sewage treatment moves from secondary to first A, the unit price of sewage treatment in the country will increase by1.09yuan/m3.(2) Each pollutant makes different contribution in raising the cost of upgrading. The shadow price of three pollutants COD、NH3-N and TP has been calculated in this paper by using output directional distance function method, the result shows that if the discharge water standard of sewage treatment moves from secondary to first, the cut of NH3-N and TP pollutant plays a more important part in raising the sewage treatment charge; and the cutting cost is much more bigger in eastern and western areas than in the middle areas for each unit pollutant.(3) The estimated price-adjusting of the sewage treatment charge showing the inconsistency between regions, but the need trend for rising coincides with the economic development in China as a whole. Under the premise that initial discharge of sewage treatment plant is secondary, the cost of upgrade is much less in the eastern areas than in the middle and western areas whicd is as the same as the price-adjusting scheme of sewage treatment charge for upgrading.From a national view, the demand cost of upgrading faced by country is similar to the central region.