The impact of environmental regulation on renewable energy development in China from the perspective of spatial effects

From a spatial perspective, this paper constructs a spatial Durbin model based on the adjacent weight matrix to analyze the impact of environmental regulation on the development of renewable energy in 30 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government) in China from 2007 to 2020. The results show that (1) both environmental regulation and renewable energy development have positive spatial autocorrelation and form relatively similar spatial agglomeration areas, specifically showing the characteristics of “high-high” agglomeration in resource-rich areas and “low-low” agglomeration in resource-scarce areas. (2) Environmental regulation significantly promotes the development of local renewable energy and has a significant spatial spillover effect on the development of renewable energy in neighboring provinces. (3) The moderating effect results show that renewable energy installed capacity and electricity demand play an inverse moderating role between environmental regulation and renewable energy development. (4) From the perspective of different regions, the impact of environmental regulation on the development of renewable energy is heterogeneous. Based on the research conclusions, this paper finally provides corresponding policy suggestions from three aspects: regional cooperation, technical support, and differentiation.