Abstract
Coal-fired power plants are the main pollution source in most areas of China. The implementation of circular economy in coal-fired power plants is necessary for environmental protection and also an effective way of energy saving and emission reduction. In this paper, we make a survey on major studies of assessment methods and models for circular economy. The relative efficiency of circular economy for coal-fired power plants is evaluated with super-efficiency data envelopment analysis (SE-DEA) model, and the empirical study is carried out with field survey data. The result shows that the assessment model based on SE-DEA not only can be used to evaluate the relative efficiency of circular economy for the coal-fired power plant, but also may be applied to set the benchmark of circular economy implementation and to improve the circular economy performance for the power generation.