China's provincial-level sustainable energy transition requires accelerating renewable energy technological innovation

In energy economics, little attention has been paid to the impact of renewable energy technological innovation (RETI) on sustainable energy transition in a large energy-producing and consuming country such as China. Using the Chinese provincial panel dataset from 2000 to 2018, we examine the impact of RETI on sustainable energy transition. We find that RETI positively drives sustainable energy transition in Chinese provinces, but the driving effect gradually diminishes with the increase in per capita income. In the energy-poor regions, RETI has a sig-nificant driving impact on sustainable energy transition, but not in the energy-rich regions; moreover, this driving effect in the western region is significantly more potent than that in the eastern region. The mechanism identification results reveal that RETI significantly improves energy system performance and energy structure optimization. In contrast, RETI has a more significant effect on the former. In this study, we provide a novel perspective to identify the driving path of sustainable energy transition in Chinese provinces.