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Environmental sustainability

China's Power Supply Chain Sustainability: An Analysis of Performance and Technology Gap

Strategic Insights

— 2 min read

A new study from the Beijing Institute of Technology has shed light on the sustainability of China's power supply chain, highlighting significant regional differences in performance and technology levels. The research, which has been peer-reviewed, analyzed data from coal-fired thermal power plants and downstream power grid enterprises across China's provinces. The study found that market-oriented reforms have had a limited effect on power grid enterprises, but have promoted the development of power generation enterprises.

Key Takeaways:

  • The power industry is a major source of carbon emissions in China, and addressing it is crucial for reducing carbon emissions.
  • The study focused on the power supply chain (PSC) in China, composed of coal-fired thermal power plants and downstream power grid enterprises.
  • Financial supporters for the research included the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the National Key Research & Development Program of China, the Beijing Philosophy and Social Science Foundation, and the Jiangsu Overseas Visiting Scholar Program for University Prominent Young and Middle-aged Teachers and Presidents.
  • The research explored and analyzed the sustainable performance and technology heterogeneity of China's provinces' PSCs, proposing a two-system model to evaluate the sustainable performance, generation performance, and sale performance of PSCs.
  • The study applied the meta-frontier technique to analyze the technology heterogeneity of all PSCs across different regions.
  • The empirical results demonstrated that market-oriented reform of the power industry played a role in promoting the development of power generation enterprises in China's PSCs but had a limited effect on the power grid enterprises in the PSC.
  • The study showed that there are significant regional differences in the sustainable performance and technology of China's PSC, with PSCs in Eastern China having a high level of sustainable performance and technology, while PSCs in Central and Northeast China are relatively poor.
  • Specific policy recommendations were presented by the research to improve PSC's sustainable performance and technology levels at the government and enterprise levels.

Statistics:

  • 349: The issue number of the Annals of Operations Research where the research was published.
  • 2: The volume number of the Annals of Operations Research where the research was published.
  • 849-877: The page numbers of the research in the Annals of Operations Research.
  • 2025: The year the research was conducted and published.

Sources:

  • [Research Conducted at Beijing Institute of Technology Has Updated Our Knowledge about Sustainability Research (China's Power Supply Chain Sustainability: an Analysis of Performance and Technology Gap). China Weekly News. August 19, 2025; p 368.]
  • China's Power Supply Chain Sustainability: an Analysis of Performance and Technology Gap. Annals of Operations Research, 2025;349(2):849-877.

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