Comparative Study Of Willingness To Pay For Using Biomass Energy

As one of the alternatives to fossil fuels, biomass with the characteristics of renewable, low carbon, low sulfur emissions has gained wide development across the world. Now biomass energy has reached14%of the total world energy supply.However, in China the research about willingness to pay for using the biomass energy is still a blank. In addition to the technical and policy factors, the consumer’ perception and willingness to pay (WTP) are also very important for biomass energy development. This paper takes straw utilization as an example, and studies the Nanjing consumers’WTP for different use forms of straw (straw-based fuel ethanol and straw-based power generation) and the factors which influence the WTP.The paper compared the difference of the WTP for different use form of straw as well. This study used the open-ended and multinomial boundary discrete choice model (MBDC) as studying method.In this survey, a total of600questionnaires are distributed throughout the Nanjing region. The results showed that:the consumer’mean WTP is14.33yuanfor the E85(85%ethanol+15%gasoline) and14.95yuan for E10(10%ethanol+90%gasoline) more than gasoline respectively when driving100km. WTP for E10is higher than E85, which shows that consumers prefer E10to E85. With the benefit of reducing waste, energy saving, environmental protecting, consumers is willing to pay0.20yuan (open-ended) and0.33yuan (MBDC) for straw-based power generation more per Kwh than traditional energy power generation, which accounts for38.5%and63.5%of the present price.Converted to the same biomass equivalent (a ton of dry straw), Consumers’ willingness to pay for ethanol blends (E85) is270.94yuan, straw power generation is198yuan. All this demonstrate that the consumers have certain WTP for straw-based biofuel products, and under the present technical level and the production efficiency, when converted to the same biomass equivalent, consumers’WTP for ethanol blends (E85) is higher than power generation.The factors which influence consumers WTP for E85are as follows:the satisfaction when using E85, whether to use ethanol fuel, available of E85(the distance to get E85) and age. The factors which influence E10:knowledge about no need to modify engines when using E10, environmental protection of E10, whether used ethanol gasoline or not, available of E10(travel distance to get E10), consumers’ attitudes towards energy security and environmental protection, private car, age and income. Annual household electricity consumption, gender, household size, income have significant positive impact on consumers’WTP for straw-based electricity. Married has a significant negative impact on WTP for straw-based electricity. Consumer who is married has the lower WTP for straw-based electricity than the unmarried.