An oligarchy game model for the mobile waste heat recovery energy supply chain

Rapid industrialization and urbanization in modern society require significant energy inputs. Conventional fossil fuels are not only expensive but also pollutive. Recently, waste heat recovery is regarded as a new sustainable energy generation approach by many researchers, which reduces not only waste treatment costs but also negative environment impacts. Although many governments provide subsidies, owing to huge capital investment of infrastructure and technical development, the economic feasibility is still the major concern of implemented a heat recovery energy supply chain. To investigate the economic feasibility of different development and pricing strategies of the newly developed mobile waste steam heat recovery networks, this study adopted the oligarchy game theory and modeled a closed-loop waste heat recovery supply chain system. Through analyzing the pricing and technical development strategies in three different modes, this study drawn several conclusions to assist the decision-making for different supply chain participants and subsidy policies for governments. The analysis results suggested that the (Research and Development) R&D cost factor and the cost reduction rate of the supply chain can effectively improve the profit of the entire supply chain when bilateral consent is achieved. With proper subsidy policy, the government can impact the cooperates’ decision of dedication on recovery technology development and price of the recycled energy on the markets.