Carbon efficiency and carbon abatement costs of coal-fired power enterprises: A case of Shanghai, China

In this paper, we adopt a non-radial directional distance function to analyze the efficiency and shadow price of CO2 emissions of coal-fired power plants. Using a sample of Shanghai's 20 coal-fired power plants, we find that the efficiency performance of power plants remained steady during the period 2007-2010. On average, the carbon abatement costs of Shanghai's power plants increased from 20.58 yuan/ton to 39.67 yuan/ton during 2007-2010. Although the average shadow price of the power plants increased during the period, the price was still well below shadow prices for the energy consumption of the industries, and a little lower than the trading price in the ETS markets. In addition, the paper discusses the implications of the findings.