The Reconstruction Of Economic Evaluation System Of Natural Gas Distributed Energy Project

With the increasing obvious restriction of environmental protection and total resource,the energy structure of China where coal plays the main role has not been suitable for the new normal of the green,low-carbon,and highly-effective development.In the context of the structural reform of energy supply side and energy production and consumption revolution,Chinese government will greatly raise the proportion of natural gas in the energy structure as a crucial part of the current energy industry revolution.Noticeably,the Natural Gas Distributed Energy,the highly-effective use of natural gas,has the obvious advantage in environmental protection,flexibility,safety,etc.Therefore,Chinese government has endowed such industry with specific encouragements,and the market holds general optimistic attitude and great expectation to this industry.However,from the formal start of 2011 to the present,this industry has not formed the trend of vigorous development.Instead,its prospect has aroused increasing worries and questions.The main reason lies in the low expectation of investment's economic return,and lack of the evaluation method objectively embodying the operation character of investment in such project.To solve this problem,based upon the clarification of the real situation of this industry development and combined with the consideration of various factors influencing the economic profit,this essay tries to apply the relevant economic theories and methods to explore the construction of the comprehensive economic evaluation system of the natural gas distributed energy project to offer the corresponding suggestions for policy making and market investing.The research subject of this essay is the reconstruction of the economic evaluation system of natural gas distributed energy project.This essay is divided into eight chapters in total,which are classified into three parts,including the fundamental research,the subject study,conclusions and recommendations.Part I,Chapters 1 and 2 are responsible for the fundamental research.This part mainly introduces the background meaning,presents the fundamental concept,and summarizes the existing literature.Based upon them,it explains the relevant theoretical foundations of Marxist Political Economics,clearly presenting the core thinking of the essay.Part II,Chapters 3 to 7 take charge of the subject study.It is the specific application and development of the theoretical thinking formed by the fundamental research.Based upon the analysis of the industry status quo,this part pinpoints the main constraints of the natural gas distributed energy industry development and proposes the conception of the reconstruction of the project economic evaluation system to solve the in-adaptability of the conventional evaluation system.Subsequently,it constructs the comprehensive economic evaluation system of the project with the researches of Conventional Economic Value,Environmental Compensation Economic Value,Uncertainty Economic Value.Finally,it makes the empirical analysis.Part III,Chapter 8 is in charge of conclusions and recommendations.This part concludes the research outcomes and proposes corresponding solutions and suggestions.The main economic theories applied in this essay are: Marxist Investment Theory,Marxist Ecological Economic Theory,Marxist Fictitious Capital Theory,Shadow Price Theory,Real Options Theory,etc.The main economic tools applied in this essay are: AHP-SWOT Model,Delphi Method,Discounted Cash Flow Method,Binomial Tree Model,etc.The contents and the outcomes of the research are as the following:1)By elaborating the relevant theoretical foundation of Marxist Political Economics,this essay clarifies the theoretical thinking of the research.Initially,based upon the analysis of Marxist Investment Theory on the principle of the capital operation and the process of the value increment of the project investment,it has been found that the essence of the capitalist investment is the capitalization of the surplus value,and the investigation of the project economic value focuses on the economic return ability of the project investment,which means 'the difference between the asset price and cost'.And,product price is the basic factor for the formation of asset price.And then,in the light of Marxist Ecological Economic Theory,this essay analyses the economic attribute of the ecological environment,pointing out that the ecological environment both restrains the formation of economic development and offers the economic development the necessary natural material conditions.The excellent ecological environment means 'the opportunity to improve the labor productivity'and ?the opportunity to realize the economic benefits'.The artificial 'green hill and clear water'(or the amelioration of the ecological environment)is equipped with the utility and the value so that it is characterized as ?the ecological product'.Next,combined with Marxist Fictitious Capital Theory,this essay researches the process of the energy project investment,finding out that in the practical market,the ownership and the use of the energy project are universally separated.The documents of title of energy projects become the conceptualized subject of the capital trading market.The feature of fictitious capital arising from asset securitization leads to the significant change in the energy project economy influenced by the market fluctuation.Lastly,in accordance with the conclusion researched by the theoretical foundation above,this essay further proposes the analysis of the deficiency of the conventional economic evaluation method,and the theoretical thinking of researching the economic evaluation system of natural gas distributed energy project by extending products scope and adjusting price difference.2)This essay analyses the status quo of the natural gas distributed energy industry and finds out that the low expectation of project economic value is the main negative factor to hinder the industry development.This essay analyses the industry development and the project investment of the cities with typical meanings,like Shanghai,Beijing,Sichuan,and even the whole country,finding out compared with the traditional energy supply ways,the natural gas distributed energy has the obvious advantage over the high efficiency,the environmental protection,the flexibility,and the safety,but the present industry development is unsatisfactory.Firstly,the power installation scale accounts for very little part in the total installed capacity of social electric power,and is far from achieving the planning objective.Secondly,after the approval of the project,the substantive implementation and the process of the investment and the construction are generally lagged,which presents a strong contrast with the investors'initiative of the project declaration.Thirdly,the industrial layout is obviously unbalanced: the projects mainly concentrate on economically developed provinces and regional central cities.Fourth,the participants in the market are mainly large state-owned enterprises,but the investment initiatives of private enterprises are weak.Overall,the industry development is characterized as ?deficiency fire'.There exists a wide gap between its real situation and the social expectation.By applying AHP-SWOT model to the quantitative analysis of self-advantages,self-disadvantages,external opportunities,external threats,and other factors influencing the industrial development,it is found that the expectation of the project economic value is generally relatively low,taking up nearly 1/3(0.2932)among the total 13 subdividing factors,which is the dominant negative factor hindering the industry development.3)This essay analyzes the conditional economic evaluation method and ?the conventional economic value'of the natural gas distributed energy project,and forms the framework design of ?the comprehensive economic evaluation system'.This essay researches the conventional economic evaluation method by taking the index of NPV in the framework of the Discounted Cash Flow(DCF)method as the specific content.After the analysis,it is found that such ?the conventional economic value'just takes the profit of the project brought by the energy goods produced by the project,the initial construction cost and the operation cost of the project investment into consideration,which means 'the difference between the energy products price summation and cost'.In the process of applying ?the conventional economic value'to the natural gas distributed energy project,there exists the obvious in-adaptability in it.Firstly,the obvious external benefit of the natural gas distributed energy project lies in the energy conservation and the environmental protection.However,under the condition of the on-going policy and market,such benefit is not embodied in the price factor of the project self-operation.And,the conventional evaluation method does not take the extra profit derived from market compensation mechanism into consideration,ignoring the economic externality of such project.Secondly,the investment of the natural gas distributed energy project is equipped with the greater uncertainty,but the conventional economic evaluation method neglects the investor's flexible decision behavior and other factors and not fully considers the organic connection between the uncertainty and the economic return ability of the project.Based upon the analysis above,this essay proposes multiple-dimensional comprehensive consideration of extending the operation profit measured singly by the economic evaluation to the economic factor,to the environmental factor,and to the market factor and then constructs the framework conception of the economic evaluation system of the natural gas distributed energy project: firstly,on the basis of the Marxist Ecological Economic Theory,this conception,according to the thinking of extending products scope,regards the effect of the pollutant emission reduction as the ecological goods,which are produced simultaneously with energy goods,like the electricity,heat,and cold,and takes them into the range of the project economic evaluation.Secondly,based upon the Marxist Fictitious Capital Theory,this conception,according to the thinking of adjusting price difference,applies the relevant tools of option pricing to measure the effect on the project economic value by uncertainty.Thirdly,through the supplement of the two aspects above,on the basis of the conventional economic value,this conception constructs the comprehensive evaluation system of the 'conventional economic value + environmental compensation economic value + uncertainty economic value'.4)This essay researches 'the environmental compensation economic value' of the natural gas distributed energy project and deduces the corresponding quantitative calculation model.This essay analyses the carbon emission feature of the natural gas distributed energy project,pointing out that the carbon emission is equipped with the obvious economic negative externality,and compared with the traditional energy supply model,such project has an obvious advantage in the carbon emission.The effect of this carbon emission reduction is essentially an economical ecological product,which can be converted into the extra economic profit under certain conditions.This essay defines this extra economic profit as 'the environmental compensation economic value' of the natural gas distributed energy project.Since the effect of carbon emission is the by-product in the process of producing the energy products,like the electricity,the heat,and the coldness,and it does not consume other costs,the environmental compensation economic value can be explained as 'the price summation of carbon emission reduction products'.Meanwhile,this essay analyzes the development status quo of the carbon emission market,finding out that even though participating in the carbon emission trade is theoretically accessible,owing to the immaturity,the incomplete mechanism,the inactivity of the present market in our country,currently,the natural gas distributed energy project cannot be compensated through such a method,and the market transaction price cannot fully embody the marginal cost of the carbon emission.In such a context,based upon the mechanism of the carbon emission and combined with Shadow Price Theory,this essay deduces the formula of the project carbon emission and GPV in the typical situation,forming the quantitative calculation model of the environmental compensation economic value of the natural gas distributed energy project.5)This essay researches 'the uncertainty economic value' of the natural gas distributed energy project and deduces the corresponding quantitative calculation model.This essay analyzes the investment operation feature of the natural gas distributed energy project.After the analysis,it is found that because of numerous price elements and boundary conditions,the uncertainty of the project investment is great,which plays a huge role in the market fluctuation.In the case,the asset price fluctuation of such project is further amplified,and the uncertainty factor has a more prominent effect on the economic return ability of such project.To solve this problem,this essay defines the effect of the uncertainty factor on the project economic value as 'the uncertainty economic value'.It measures the variation brought by the effect of the uncertainty factor on the project economic value.Its connotation can be explained as 'the correction to price difference'.In the process of quantitatively researching of 'the uncertainty economic value',this essay applies the method of Real Options Theory.Such theory considers that the process of the project investment and the financial option share the similar feature.The investor has the rights to choose whether using the option to expand the profits and restrict the losses,and the real option feature of the natural gas distributed energy project is obvious,mainly being embodied in the abandonment of the option that the investment subject can dispose of the option for the project in accordance with the market situation.Based upon this,this essay utilizes Binomial Tree Model to deduce and construct the calculation mode of OPV,forming the quantitative calculation model of the uncertainty economic value of the natural gas distributed energy project.6)This essay constructs ?the comprehensive economic evaluation system'of the natural gas distributed energy project and the corresponding quantitative calculation model,and testifies them through empirical analysis.Based upon the researches mentioned above,this essay extends and reconstructs the economic evaluation method of the natural gas distributed energy project,forms the comprehensive evaluation system,and constructs the corresponding quantitative calculation model.The difference between the comprehensive economic evaluation system and the conventional economic evaluation method exists in the situation that the former takes the supplement of the economic value from the ecological products and the effect of the uncertainty on the economic value,which are the extension and the supplement of the conventional economic evaluation method.It can be found through the empirical analysis of the typical project that in the present policy and under the current market condition,the conventional economic value(NPV)of the natural gas distributed energy project is relatively low,but the carbon emission effect of such project is obvious and the corresponding potential economic profit(GPV)is not embodied in the profit of the project self-operation.In the meantime,such project is equipped with the relatively great OPV,which proves the uncertainty feature of the natural gas distributed energy.The finding of the empirical analysis demonstrates that the comprehensive evaluation system and the quantitative calculation model reflect the characteristics of the natural gas distributed energy project,which effectively makes up the in-adaptability of the conventional economic evaluation method,contributing to the market subject's correct evaluation of the economic return ability of the project investment,enhancing the investors'investment initiatives,and promoting the industry development.7)According to the research outcomes of the project economic evaluation system,this essay proposes the corresponding solutions to comprehensively evaluating the economic value of the project investment,improving the economic profit of the project self-operation,strictly complying with the industry standards,quickening the formulation of the industry planning,offering the practical supporting policy,and actively developing the market of the carbon emission reduction as the reference for investors and government.