Fossil Fuels Electricity Generation Performance In Southern African Countries

Data Envelopment Analysis(DEA)is a tested tool in energy and environment performance studies.This study contributes to the scarce literature on fossil fuel electricity generation efficiency in the Southern African region.Fossil fuel power generation in the Southern African region accounts for a large proportion of the power supply resulting in environmental pollution and resource wastages.This work is based on the Slacks-Based Measure-Data Envelopment Analysis(SBM-DEA)method,proposed by Tone(2001),considering undesirable outputs in nine Southern African countries from 2005 to 2017 to evaluate electricity generation performance.Firstly,the study analyses the domestic sectors(excluding imports).Due to the scarcity of data for the Southern African countries,the study brings an illustrative example of the BRICS countries(namely Brazil,Russia,India,and China)excluding South Africa.The distribution of the top 20 influence and reaction sectors in Brazil,Russia,India,and China gives a general overview of the most resilient and susceptible sectors.The results also present the sectors capable of sustaining a fragile economy.The power supply sector is a critical sector in all four countries’ economies.In line with these countries’ developing status,policy makers can design sound strategies based on the insight of the linkages and interconnectedness of the various sectors in the economy.This study investigates the sources of inefficiency in different production inputs and outputs.In this study,there are five production variables(three production inputs,one desirable output and one undesirable output).Production inputs across countries include Installed Capacity,Fossil Fuels,and Labor.Desirable output is calculated by Electricity Generated across countries.Undesirable output is calculated by Carbon Dioxide emissions.Specifically,the data set on Installed Capacity of Fossil Fuels power plants across Southern African countries.The main empirical conclusions are threefold.Firstly,there are substantial variances in efficiency scores and trends across countries within the Southern Africa region.Except for the Democratic Republic of Congo,South Africa,and Tanzania(0.948,0.911,and 0.886 respectively).The majority of Southern African countries are mainly fossil fuel electricity generation inefficient.Secondly,in recent years Zambia has made giant strides towards improving efficiency from fossil fuel power production.As a result,it is now on the efficient frontier.Zimbabwe had the least efficiency score of 0.259 in 2007,and the least mean efficiency score of 0.342 over the entire sample period.Finally,the whole Southern African countries covered in this study required adjustments in their production inputs and outputs over the sample period.Inefficient countries should drastically reduce wastages in fossil fuel resource utilization.Minimizing wastages can be achieved by public and private resource allocation and technology so that fossil fuel power plants be able to achieve high operational efficiencies.Finally,the projection analysis framework finds room for improving fossil fuel power generation across th e Southern African countries to attain the efficient frontier level.It means that Southern African countries can still improve fossil fuel power generation by reducing inputs(Installed Capacity,Labor and Fossil Fuel)and undesirable output(CO2 emissions).Furthermore,these countries should strengthen or adopt market-based mechanisms to control CO2 emissions by implementing a combination of emission caps and pollution taxes on power entities.