Quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of China's energy efficiency and its driving factors: A Super-RSBM and Geodetector analysis

Improving energy efficiency is a key component of ensuring energy security and realizing “dual carbon” goals for China. This study introduced a ray slack-based model (RSBM) and Super-RSBM, which may distinguish weak and strong disposability to provide a more comprehensive and reliable insight compared with traditional models, to measure China's energy efficiency during 2000–2017. Its spatiotemporal characteristics were outlined elaborately by spatial autocorrelation models and Theil index, and its driving factors were probed by Geodetector model instead of econometric models to minimize fitting bias. The results showed that China's energy efficiency remained a medium level over time, and experienced a slightly declining first and then fluctuating. Meanwhile, it maintained a distribution pattern of higher energy efficiency in the eastern region as well as Mongolian and Tibetan Plateau, while lower in the western region and most of North China Plain. It had great inequality across provinces and regions. Specifically, the number of LL-type provinces decreased while provinces of HH-type were always rare. The national inequality of energy efficiency was mainly derived from the intraregional difference. Furthermore, China's energy efficiency was tightly associated with the economic development and urbanization level. It showed a loose connection with environmental regulation and clean production proportion. All pairs of studied factors had mutually reinforcing effects on energy efficiency. These results could serve as strong scientific supports to formulate policies targeted towards energy conservation and emission reduction.