China's energy consumption and economic activity at the regional level

Since 2013, China's economy has undergone a series of major structural changes under the new normal. This study aimed to research China's plateauing regional-level energy consumption at this stage by analysing socioeconomic factors driving energy consumption changes from 2002 to 2019 through decomposition analysis and regional value chains. The results indicate that the annual growth rate of China's energy consumption dropped from 10% between 2002 and 2013 to 2% between 2013 and 2019, mainly attributable to energy efficiency enhancement offsetting the −27% increase from 2013 to 2019 and structural changes. At the regional level, the three structural drivers were closely related, including the regional structure, industrial structure and energy structure. Under the new normal, the −2.58% contribution of the regional structure to energy consumption growth was mainly made by regions with a high energy efficiency; one way to improve the energy efficiency was to upgrade the regional industrial structure, leading to the slowdown by 0.26%; and industrial transition could be accompanied by adjustment of the energy structure towards relatively clean energy, thereby offsetting growth by −0.13%. The energy consumption required to create value-added outflows along regional value chains varied greatly across regions, sectors and years