Contributing to differentiated technology policy-making on the promotion of energy efficiency technologies in heavy industrial sector: a case study of China

Promoting energy efficiency technologies (EETs) in heavy industrial sector is a crucial approach for energy conservation worldwide. Due to the existence of various barriers, the diffusion of EETs is often slow and is largely influenced by policy incentives. Insufficient consideration of the heterogeneity of EETs makes the one-size-fits-all policy design scheme ineffective and inefficient in practice. Therefore, this paper analyzes the design of differentiated technology policies to accelerate the promotion of EETs. The analysis is based on technology classification results from a bottom-up technology evaluation system. Technical attributes were qualitatively analyzed and the 130 total technologies were divided into three segments: 76 main production-process technologies (PP), 39 process-integrated resource and energy recycling technologies (RER) and 15 pollution control technologies (PC). Then the 115 PP and RER technologies were quantitatively analyzed by calculating benefit-cost ratio, investment payback time and technical penetration. The evaluation results proved that EETs had marked differences in economic efficiency and technical maturity, with dynamic investment payback time ranging from 0.3 to 11 years and penetrations ranging from 1% to 80%. Graphing investment payback time on a vertical axis and technical penetration on a horizontal axis, the 115 technologies were classified into four quadrants. Features and policy-support demands of those three types of technologies in the four quadrants were discussed and corresponding technology policies were proposed. The thorough technical investigations in this study also provided a complete technological database for policy-making, which was freely offered on the website of China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.