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Chinese Journal of Management Science ›› 2025, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (2): 320-331.doi: 10.16381/j.cnki.issn1003-207x.2022.2029

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Flexible Investment Decision of Waste-to-energy Projects under Carbon Trading Mechanism

Junfei Hu(), Huanyue Chen   

  1. School of Management,Northwestern Polytechnical University,Xi’an 710129,China
  • Received:2022-09-14 Revised:2022-11-10 Online:2025-02-25 Published:2025-03-06

Abstract:

Promoting investment and construction of waste-to-energy (WtE) projects are an important direction for the future low-carbon development. The China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) mechanism allows WtE projects to obtain additional benefits of carbon emission reduction after filing, which brings new opportunities for such projects. However, the high volatility of CCER prices will further increase the uncertainty of operation environment, which makes the development of WtE projects face challenges. Therefore, it is of great significance to investigate the influence of CCER mechanism on WtE projects decision-makings. In this paper, a flexible investment decision of WtE projects under the CCER mechanism is studied. The flexible investment decision allows decision-makers to flexibly choose the optimal investment time within an effective investment period. A real option model with the least squares Monte Carlo simulation is developed to evaluate the value of flexibility. It can also help decision-makers to choose the optimal investment time. The proposed model compares favorably to traditional real option models (e.g., the binomial lattices) by efficiently analyzing multiple uncertainties (i.e., electricity price, CCER price, unit investment cost and electricity generation efficiency). Unlike the existing real option models that are mostly applied to solar energy and wind energy, it focuses on the optimization problem of WtE projects. The applicability of the proposed model is tested using a real WtE projects in Shaanxi, China. Results show that the existence of CCER mechanism can significantly increase the value of WtE projects. The project value with flexible investment decision is higher than that of the fixed investment decision, which further verifies the important of considering flexibility in WtE development processes. In addition, the sensitivity analysis shows that with the increase in parameters like the subsidy proportion, the CCER price, the upper/lower bound of carbon price, the project value of the flexible investment decision will be increased accordingly. These results may help government agencies and decision-makers understand the flexible decision-making of WtE projects under the CCER mechanism.

Key words: waste-to-energy, flexible investment decision-making, real options, China’s certified emission reduction

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