Investigating spatio-temporal characteristics and influencing factors for green energy consumption in China

The green transformation of energy consumption is beneficial for promoting green development in China. This study constructed a green energy consumption evaluation index system and measured the green energy consumption levels in 30 provinces of China from 2000 to 2019 using the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. This study further employed the spatial Durbin model to examine influencing factors and spillover effects of green source consumption. The results showed that, temporally, China's green energy consumption levels had a fluctuating trend. While, spatially, the overall levels of green energy consumption in China showed apparent characteristics of "high in the west and low in the east". In terms of influencing factors, environmental regulations played an important role in promoting green energy consumption in the region, while economic development, opening up, and industrial structure had considerably inhibiting effects. Additionally, economic development, opening up, and industrial structure of neighboring regions showed marked positive spillover effects, while urbanization level and technological innovation showed substantial negative spillover effects. The regional heterogeneity test results showed that environmental regulation and industrial structure rationalization were the important factors for promoting green energy consumption in the eastern region, environmental regulation played an important driving role in the central region, and opening to the outside world and technological innovation helped improve the level of green energy consumption in the western region.