Allocation and Evolution of Government Attention in China’s Electric Power Industry: An Analysis Based on Policy Text

Abstract

This study aimed to identify a viable solution for the development of China’s electric power industry in line with “dual carbon” objectives. Accordingly, we collected and analyzed 2230 policy documents spanning 25 years to track the Chinese government’s focus on the electric power sector over time using latent Dirichlet allocation topic modeling. Our results reveal that the government’s area of emphasis differs across different stages of development. By analyzing the evolution of policy implementation, we identified the actions taken by government agencies at the policy level to promote the electric power industry. We then distilled the key themes of government attention and challenges facing the green transition of electricity in the context of “dual carbon”. Based on this analysis, we propose practical recommendations for restructuring power energy, enhancing power security, and improving power market efficiency. These findings hold important implications for China to achieve an environmentally sustainable electric power transformation.