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Promoting Energy Performance Contracting for Achieving Urban Sustainability: What is the Research Trend?

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  • Wenjie Zhang

    (School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University, 111 North 1st Section of 2nd Ring Road, Chengdu 610031, China)

  • Hongping Yuan

    (School of Management, Guangzhou University, 230 Wai Huan Xi Road of Guangzhou Higher Education Mega Center, Guangzhou 510006, China)

Abstract

The increasing demand for applying energy performance contracting (EPC) for urban energy conservation has resulted in a significant amount of publications over the past decade. This study tries to identify future research trends in the subject of EPC through analyzing 127 journal papers published from 2008 to 2018. Based on the analysis and discussion of the EPC research, several main research trends were identified. The research results reveal an increasing research interest in EPC over the period. The findings imply that case study is the major research method and descriptive analysis and statistical analysis are primarily used for data analysis. In addition, EPC research in the past decade focused on five major research topics, which are ‘implementation of EPC projects’, ‘EPC mechanism and business models’, ‘decision-making in EPC projects’, ‘Energy Service Companies (ESCOs) in EPC projects’, and ‘risk management in EPC projects’. Based on the five research topics, future research trends and directions in EPC were identified as well. The findings of this study can be informative and valuable for guiding future research in EPC, and are particularly helpful for researchers who are keen to open a new window of investigating EPC issues worldwide.

Suggested Citation

  • Wenjie Zhang & Hongping Yuan, 2019. "Promoting Energy Performance Contracting for Achieving Urban Sustainability: What is the Research Trend?," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-18, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:8:p:1443-:d:222924
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    8. Daniel Wacinkiewicz & Szymon Słotwiński, 2023. "The Statutory Model of Energy Performance Contracting as a Means of Improving Energy Efficiency in Public Sector Units as Seen in the Example of Polish Legal Policies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(13), pages 1-15, June.

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