Benchmarking Economical Efficiency of Renewable Energy Power Plants: A Data Envelopment Analysis Approach

This paper implements Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to calculate an efficiency measure index of 21 energy power plants that use different technologies, including both renewable and conventional types. Super-efficiency measurements are used to generate a ranking of plants based on their efficiency score that can be used to select among alternatives. It is also showed how DEA can also be adopted to estimate the amount of financial subsidies necessary to make a renewable energy plant as efficient as a conventional energy plant, by calculating the extent to which inefficient power plants over-utilize specific inputs or under-produce outputs.