Quantitative Evaluation of China’s Energy Transition Policy Since the 14th Five-Year Plan, Based on the MLP-PMC Model

Evaluating the effectiveness of China’s energy transition policies and formulating scientific policy optimization paths are essential for advancing China’s energy transition and global carbon reduction. This paper quantitatively evaluates China’s 22 key energy transition policies during the 14th Five-Year Plan period via text excavation, the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP), and the PMC index model. The research results show that the overall design of China’s energy transition policy is reasonable. Only two policies are graded as acceptable, while the rest of the policies are graded as good or higher. In addition, landscape policy, regime policy, and niche policy have a decreasing influence on energy transition projects in China. This research summarizes three common shortcomings in China’s energy transition policy: (1) the lack of explicit policy incentives and constraints; (2) the inadequate authority of policy releasers; and (3) the limited coverage of the policy focus.