Effects of urbanisation on energy consumption in China

As a key issue in China's economic development, urbanisation creates increasing pressure on energy supply and the natural environment. Thus, a better understanding of the relationship between urbanisation and energy consumption is necessary for Chinese decision makers at various levels to address energy security and sustainable economic and social development. This paper empirically investigates the effects of China's urbanisation on residential energy consumption (REC) and production energy consumption (PEC) through a time-series analysis. The results show that compared with rural areas, urbanisation slows per capita REC growth because of the economy of scale and technological advantages associated with urbanisation but has greater promotional effects on the growth of REC and the improvement of REC structure. The economic growth caused by urbanisation most significantly contributes to an increase in PEC, whereas technological advancement was found to reduce the scale of PEC (except from 2001 to 2005). Finally, the structural effect of the energy supply increased rather than decreased China's PEC, and the effect of industrial structure adjustment on PEC was found to be insignificant. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.