Willingness to pay for substituting coal with natural gas-based combined heat and power in South Korea: A view from air pollutants emissions mitigation

As of 2017, coal-fired generation is responsible for about half of electricity generation in South Korea. This causes a serious problem of emitting air pollutants such as particulate matters, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides. Thus, the South Korean government is seeking to substitute a part of coal-fired generation with natural gas (NG)-based combined heat and power (CHP) generation for the purpose of mitigating air pollutants emissions. This article tries to assess the public willingness to pay (WTP) for the substitution adopting contingent valuation (CV). The data on the additional WTP for consuming 1 kWh of electricity produced from NG-based CHP generation over coal-fired generation were gathered from a CV survey of 1000 interviewees. The mean additional WTP estimate for the substitution is obtained as KRW28.08 (USD 0.025) per kWh of electricity use. This is equivalent to 25.9% of the average price of electricity, KRW108.50 (USD 0.098) per kWh in 2017. It is obvious that the South Korean public has a significant WTP for substituting coal with NG in electricity generation to mitigate air pollutants emissions. The government needs to gradually push for the substitution.