Understanding the green energy efficiencies of provinces in China: A Super-SBM and GML analysis

At present, China is transforming into a green development mode in all respects, and improving green energy efficiency is a key component of this transformation. Using panel data of 2011–2018, this research adopts the Super-SBM (Slack-Based Model) to calculate the green energy efficiencies of China's 29 provinces and a GML (Global Malmquist-Luenberger) index method to explain the efficiency changes. Empirical analysis draws the following conclusions: 1) China's green energy efficiency presented a slowly decreasing rather than increasing trend. 2) Technological progress was a major factor in efficiency improvement. However, its contribution was canceled by energy overuse. 3) Provinces with low green energy efficiency tend to geographically gather in the regions with rich energy resource endowment. Instead, provinces with high green energy efficiency are relatively geographically scattered, and most of them are China's most developed regions. 4) Green energy efficiencies among China's four major regions have significant differences. Generally, the mean level is east > northeast > west > central. 5) The key policy directions to improve China's green energy efficiency include using transfer payment to balance the regional development, breaking down the barriers among provinces to facilitate energy circulation, and refining energy price structure to mitigate rebound effects.