Measuring the capacity utilization of the coal sector and its decoupling with economic growth in China’s supply-side reform

As the regulation of coal capacity utilization (CU) is a vital step to implement the optimization of energy mix, this article intends to measure the coal CU during 1990–2014 to scientifically evaluate the resources allocation of China’s coal industry. Hicks-neutral and Solow-neutral models are established respectively to assess the coal capacity considering the technical progress, and the decoupling index is applied to analyze the effect of coal CU on China’s economic growth. The main results are as follows: (1) the Solow-neutral model is more suitable for evaluating CU compared to the Hicks-neutral. (2) China’s coal CU has a 10-year cyclical fluctuation with a reasonable range of 89%–105%, and the overcapacity cordon is 85%. (3) Most years in the study period saw the decoupling effect of the coal CU and China’s economic growth from the decoupling index and Johansen Cointegration test. (4) A predicted expansive or strong recoupling effect will occur in the following China’s 13th Five-Year Plan period. The government is expected to adopt more supportive measures to ensure the quality of supply-side reform and guide China’s coal CU back to a reasonable level.