The drivers of energy intensity changes in Chinese cities: A production-theoretical decomposition analysis

[Display omitted] •City-level energy intensity changes and their contributors are investigated.•Technological change and capital-energy substitution significantly reduced EI.•We identify the effective combinations of drivers for different types of cities.•Double-driver and triple-driver cities of energy intensity changes prevail. Quantifying the drivers of energy intensity change could provide valuable information for policy analysis and making. This study applied production-theoretical decomposition analysis to investigate the driving forces behind the energy intensity changes in Chinese cities between 2006 and 2017. The empirical results show that technological change and capital-energy substitutions were responsible for 6% and 4% of the fall in energy intensity on average, respectively, while technical efficiency contributed to about 2% of the increase in energy intensity, with significantly different magnitude across various cities. We further classified the sample cities based on the simultaneous effect of decomposition results, identifying the effective combinations of drivers on energy intensity reduction for different types of cities. The classification reveals that double-drivers and triple-drivers of energy intensity change prevail, which explains why energy intensity significantly fell in eastern and central regions but increased in the western region. Furthermore, the cities were categorized into four groups based on the differences in changes in energy intensity and energy efficiency. It reveals the key measures used to reduce energy intensity, and identifies that over a half of the cities with similar changing trends of energy intensity might be misjudged by policymakers with respect to energy efficiency performance.