How to improve the effectiveness of Chinese green certificate market? A complex network and social influence analysis

To achieve the 2030 carbon peak target and promote the development of renewable energy, China introduced the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) and tradable green certificate (TGC) trading mechanism in 2017. However, for several years, its TGC market remained depressed. To solve this issue, this paper creatively introduced social influence and complex networks into the evolutionary game model between generators to analyze the evolution of power producers' behaviors, and to study the impacts of social influence, key institutional parameters, and network influence. The main results show that: (1) The positive intervention of public opinion is important to the vulnerable early TGC market, but its efficiency shows a marginal decline. (2) The evolution process can be accelerated through social interactions, and the strategies adopted by central firms in the network significantly influence the evolution result, especially when TGC alliances are formed. (3) According to the preference of social influence and profit, participants can be divided into two types: changeable (who favors interests), firm (who values social approval), and the latter has a greater market pulling effect. This paper provides implications for policymakers from new perspectives and extends the research scope of the RPS scheme and the TGC market.

Automated summary

This paper introduces social influence and complex networks into the evolutionary game model of the TGC market to analyze the behaviors of power producers and study the impacts of social influence, key institutional parameters, and network influence. The results show that positive intervention of public opinion is important to the early TGC market, social interactions can accelerate the evolution process, and strategies adopted by central firms significantly influence the evolution result. This paper provides new insights for policymakers and extends the research scope of the RPS scheme and the TGC market.