A Comparative Method for Assessment of Sustainable Energy Development across Regions: An Analysis of 30 Provinces in China

Sustainable energy development (SED) has attracted the attention of the whole world. It has a wide range of concepts and rich connotations, which is difficult to be described with a single indicator. Therefore, scholars usually use multiple indicators to evaluate SED in multiple dimensions. Existing studies mostly took countries as the research objects, and there were fewer studies on sub-regions (provincial-level regions). In fact, due to factors such as resource endowment and industrial structure, there would be obvious differences in the energy system of different regions even within a country, such as China. This study took 30 provinces in China from 2010 to 2019 as the research object, and constructed a provincial-level SED evaluation system. Analytical methods of indicator contribution were also proposed to evaluate the improvement of specific indicators and their contribution to SED on both spatial and temporal scales. The findings could help identify where provinces are doing well or poorly in SED, thereby clarifying priorities for future improvements.