Energy and CO2 emission performance in electricity generation: A non-radial directional distance function approach

This paper presents a non-radial directional distance function approach to modeling energy and CO2emission performance in electricity generation from the production efficiency point of view. We first define and construct the environmental production technologies for the countries with and without CHP plants, respectively. The non-radial direction distance function approach is then proposed and several indexes are developed to measure energy and CO2 emission performance of electricity generation. The directional distance functions established can be computed by solving a series of data envelopment analysis models. We then conduct an empirical study using the dataset for over one hundred countries. It is found that OECD countries have better carbon emission performance and integrated energy-carbon performance than non-OECD countries in electricity generation, while the difference in energy performance is not significant.

► We propose a non-radial directional distance function to measure energy and CO2 emission performance in electricity generation. ► Several energy and CO2 emission performance indexes are developed. ► The empirical study on 126 countries illustrates the usefulness of the proposed approach and indexes.