Driving factors of NOX emission reduction in China’s power industry: based on LMDI decomposition model

Under the policy background of “joint prevention and control” of global greenhouse gas emission reduction and regional air pollutants, the power industry, as an important target industry of energy conservation and emission reduction policies, has become an effective choice to release dual pressures. In this paper, the “bottom-up” emission factor method was used to measure the emission of CO2 and NOX from 2011 to 2019. Then, the contributions of six factors to NOX emission reduction in China’s power industry were identified using the Kaya identity and logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI) decomposition methods. The research results show that (1) there is a significant synergistic emission reduction effect between CO2 emission reduction and NOX emission reduction; (2) the factor that inhibits the growth of NOX emissions reduction in the power industry is economic development factor; and (3) the main factors that promote the reduction of NOX emission from the power industry are synergy effect, energy intensity, power generation intensity, and power production structure factors. Several suggestions are proposed, which are the power industry should adjust its structure, improve energy intensity, focus on applying low-nitrogen combustion technology, and improve the air pollutant emission information disclosure system to reduce NOX emissions.