Evaluation of Energy Utilization Efficiency in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract

The reasonable optimization of energy structures and improvement of energy utilization efficiency are the inevitable way to achieve new progress in ecological civilization construction. The Yangtze River Economic Belt, as the leading demonstration area of China’s ecological civilization construction, is of great significance to take the lead in clarifying its energy efficiency situation under the dual-carbon goal. For this purpose, this paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model, ML index and Tobit model considering undesired output to explore the energy efficiency and the main factors affecting it of nine provincial capitals and two municipalities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2003 to 2019. The results show that: (1) During the investigation period, the energy efficiency values of 11 cities are above 1, with a recent trend of decline, and the energy efficiency difference between regions is still expanding. (2) From 2003 to 2019, the overall energy efficiency of the Yangtze River Economic Belt has gradually improved with an average annual growth rate of 4.7%. Technological progress is the main force behind efficiency improvement, technical efficiency plays a small role, and the growth rate of the scale efficiency change index is only 1.3%, which means that the existing scale system of the Yangtze River Economic Belt still needs to be further improved. (3) The impact of industrial structure and government dominance on energy efficiency is significantly positive, while the degree of opening to the outside world is significantly negative. The relationship between economic development level and energy efficiency is an inverted “U” shape.