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Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment

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A special issue of Energies (ISSN 1996-1073). This special issue belongs to the section "B: Energy and Environment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2019) | Viewed by 22409

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Prof. Dr. Toshiyuki Sueyoshi

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1. The Center for Economic Research, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China
2. School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Tech World Research Hub Initiative, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 3-3-6 Shibaura, Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023, Japan
Interests: management science, risk and policy analysis
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Prof. Dr. Mika Goto

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School of Environment and Society, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo 108-0023, Japan
Interests: energy economics; energy policy; technolgy development
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The journal Energies, listed in SCI and Q1/Q2 in the SCImago Journal Rank, plans to publish a Special Issue on “Data envelopment analysis (DEA) applied to energy and the environment”. The DEA approach has established its reputation as a holistic methodology for evaluating the economic performance of various organizations in the public and private sectors that use multiple input resources (e.g., employees and assets) to produce multiple outputs (e.g., total sales and services). Methodologically, the approach does not assume any functional form between the two production factors. Recently, DEA has extended the analytical capability of environmental assessments, additionally incorporating undesirable outputs (e.g., CO₂ emissions, water and nuclear wastes). The new type of DEA is one of the methodologies to assess joint economic and environmental performance, or more broadly a level of sustainability. This Special Issue considers applications that use DEA as a methodology to discuss recent problems related to energy, the environment, and sustainability. We look forward to various applications that measure how new technology developments (e.g., smart city design and development, clean coal technology and shale oil and gas) can enhance the energy efficiency, resource utilization, energy policy and other industrial issues concerning sustainability (e.g., global warming and climate change).

Prof. Dr. Toshiyuki Sueyoshi
Prof. Dr. Mika Goto
Guest Editors

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Keywords

DEA
Energy
Environment
Sustainability

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

24 pages, 1485 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Performance Assessment of Japanese Electric Power Industry: DEA Measurement with Future Impreciseness

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Mika Goto

Energies 2020, 13(2), 490; https://doi.org/10.3390/en13020490 - 19 Jan 2020

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3282

Abstract

This study examines the performance of Japanese electric power companies from 2003 to 2020. We use an observed data set from 2003 to 2015 and a forecasted data set from 2016 to 2020. The Japanese deregulation of the industry needs to be completed by April 2020. As a method, this study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) environmental assessment, which measures performance from a holistic perspective. This research adds a new analytical capability to the DEA-based assessment by including an analytical ability to handle an “imprecise” data set. We apply the proposed approach to investigate the performance of these companies before and after the disaster of Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (11 March 2011). All electric power companies have suffered from business damage due to the nuclear disaster. The Japanese government has developed a policy scheme on how to recover from the huge handling costs resulting from the disaster. Nuclear energy has been long considered the most useful approach to handle climate change. However, many industrial nations have changed policy direction since the nuclear disaster. The Japanese government allocates the costs to not only Tokyo Electric Power Company, which produced the nuclear disaster, but also the other incumbent electric power companies that own nuclear power plants. Under the current Japanese scheme, financial conditions have been gradually recovering from the damage due to the managerial efforts and by indirectly allocating the expenditure to consumers and tax payers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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18 pages, 1088 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Environmental Assessment on Chinese Logistics Enterprises Based on Non-Radial DEA

by Jie Liu, Chunhui Yuan and Xiaolong Li

Energies 2019, 12(24), 4760; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12244760 - 13 Dec 2019

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 2211

Abstract

Under the new situation of economic development in China, the logistics industry is facing unbalanced development regarding economic and environmental performance. From the enterprise level, this study investigated the sustainability of Chinese logistics based on the environmental assessment data envelopment analysis (DEA) model, and measured the unified efficiency of a logistics company under two different production arrangement strategies. The empirical measurement provides several findings. First, logistics enterprises give higher priority to operational benefits than environmental performance. Second, under the operational priority of production arrangement, small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) unified efficiency is better than a large enterprise, and private enterprises’ unified efficiency is better than state-owned enterprises. Moreover, the empirical study has further proved that the sustainability development of Chinese logistics is still at the primary stage; when facing trade-offs in the sustainability context, logistics companies still prioritize operational performance first. Therefore, transforming corporate strategy into an environmental sustainable priority and realizing logistics sustainability still has a long way to go, which is the backbone of realizing balanced development of both the economy and environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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14 pages, 1169 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Environmental Sustainability of Road Transport in OECD Countries

by Fei Mo and Derek Wang

Energies 2019, 12(18), 3525; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183525 - 13 Sep 2019

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 2474

Abstract

Road transport is a primary source of various forms of air pollution and climate-impacting emissions, and contains huge potential for improving the environment and combating climate change. This paper studies the environmental sustainability of road transport for a set of OECD countries over the period 2000–2014. We capture the sustainability performance of road transport in two data envelopment analysis (DEA) models, corresponding to the concepts of natural disposability and managerial disposability, respectively. Air pollution and carbon emissions are treated as undesirable outputs. The models produce two unified measures of environmental sustainability performance, accounting for transport activities and environmental impacts simultaneously. We find that the studied countries have improved their overall managerial disposability performance from 2000 to 2014, driven by technological progress and tightening regulations on fuel economy and vehicle emissions. The analysis enables us to identify best-practice and laggard countries in transport sustainability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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20 pages, 1609 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Natural and Managerial Disposability Based DEA Model for China’s Regional Environmental Efficiency Assessment

by Xiaoyang Zhou, Hao Chen, Hao Wang, Benjamin Lev and Lifang Quan

Energies 2019, 12(18), 3436; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183436 - 06 Sep 2019

Cited by 6 | Viewed by 2451

Abstract

With the acceleration of industrialization, a large amount of energy consumption has brought tremendous pressure to the natural environment. In order to prevent environmental pollution and promote sustainable development, the environmental efficiency assessment as an effective way to provide decision-making basis has been given wide attention. This study measures the environmental efficiency of 30 provinces in China from 2006 to 2015 based on the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) environmental assessment radial model both under natural disposability and managerial disposability that considered the constant variable return to scale (RTS) and the damage to scale (DTS). In addition, the scale efficiency under the two kinds of disposability of China’s 30 provinces were also measured. We found that the environmental efficiencies of different provinces in China showed regional disparities. Provinces such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong had a good performance in unified environmental efficiency and scale efficiency both under natural disposability and managerial disposability. Generally speaking, the eastern regions always performed better than the central and western regions in unified environmental efficiency during the observed years. Therefore, policies should be established to distribute the resources in balance between the east, center, and west to further promote environmental efficiency. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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20 pages, 2337 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Comparison among Three Groups of Solar Thermal Power Stations by Data Envelopment Analysis

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Mika Goto

Energies 2019, 12(13), 2454; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12132454 - 26 Jun 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 8166

Abstract

To change an increasing trend of energy consumption, many counties have turned to solar thermal energy as a solution. Without greenhouse gas emissions, solar thermal power stations may play a vital role in the energy industry because they have a potential to produce electricity for 24 h per day. The goal of this study is to select solar thermal power stations from three regions (i.e., the United States, Spain and the other nations) throughout the world and to identify which region most efficiently produces solar thermal power energy. To measure their efficiencies, we use data envelopment analysis as a method to examine the performance of these power stations. Our empirical results show that the United States currently fields the most efficient solar thermal power stations. This study also finds that parabolic trough technology slightly outperforms the other two technologies (i.e., heliostat power tower and linear Fresnel reflector), but not at the level of statistical significance. In addition to the proposed efficiency assessment, we incorporate a new way of finding a possible existence of congestion. The phenomenon of congestion is separated into output-based and input-based occurrences. Output-based congestion implies a capacity limit (e.g., difficulties in transmission, voltage control and dispatch scheduling) in a grid network between generation and end users. Input-based congestion occurs when generators use “uncontrollable inputs” (e.g., sunlight hours). Renewable energy sources, such as solar thermal power, are indeed important for our future sustainability. However, this needs performance assessment on generation and transmission through which electricity generated by renewable energy is conveyed to end users. Such a holistic assessment, including both efficiency measurement and congestion identification, serves as a major component in evaluating and planning renewable energy generation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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22 pages, 1122 KiB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

DEA Non-Radial Approach for Resource Allocation and Energy Usage to Enhance Corporate Sustainability in Japanese Manufacturing Industries

by Toshiyuki Sueyoshi and Mika Goto

Energies 2019, 12(9), 1785; https://doi.org/10.3390/en12091785 - 10 May 2019

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2667

Abstract

This article discusses how to enhance corporate sustainability by simultaneously measuring operational and environment achievements. In past decades, most companies have made steady efforts to enhance their sustainability levels. However, they still have strategic space for improving sustainability. This research proposes a new use of environmental measurement by data envelopment analysis. We apply the approach to Japanese industrial sectors and obtain five implications. First, they maintain a high level of unified efficiency on resource allocation and energy usage under natural disposability (priority: operation). Second, the efficiency under managerial one (priority: environment) is generally lower than that of natural disposability. Third, among the industries with high operational achievement, only the pharmaceutical product industry presents high attainment on environmental protection. Fourth, the pulp and paper industry as well as the textile product industry have a potential for efficiency improvement by investing in green technology. Finally, desirable congestion indicates a potential of performance improvement by investing in green technology. Those results imply that the current business situation is different from the previous image on Japanese industries, often referred to as “Japan Inc.”, where all firms used to operate like a single entity under the governmental regulation. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) Applied to Energy and Environment)

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