Do we really understand the development of China's new energy industry?

Countries all over the world have realized that the key to resolving the dilemma between accelerated energy consumption and reduction in carbon dioxide emission is to actively develop new energy industry. Many scholars have conducted in-depth investigation into the main driving forces of the new energy industry. However, they often adhere to an assumption that the effect of the driving forces on new energy industry is constant across areas, ignoring the spatial heterogeneity in economic phenomena. Geographically weighted regression (GWR) model and the use of local sample data to implement parameter estimation can make up for the inadequacies of existing research. Therefore, this paper uses the GWR model to carefully investigate the new energy industry. The results show that the impact of economic growth on the new energy industry in the eastern region is higher than in the central and western regions owing to the differences in economic structure and fixed asset investment. The impact of foreign energy dependence continuously declines from the eastern region to the central and western regions. This is attributable to the differences in natural gas and oil imports. Technological progress has a similar effect on account of the differences in R&D funding and R&D personnel investments. However, the impact of the agriculture industry in the central region is higher than in the eastern and western regions due to the differences in crop acreage and agricultural output. This study improves our understanding of the new energy industry and would help local authorities to formulate targeted policies for promoting the growth of new energy industry. (C) 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.