Regional variation in the drivers of China's residential electricity consumption (REC) and policy orientation

Electricity consumption is crucial for decarbonizing transformation from coal, biomass to clean energy in the res-idential sector. REC has become the largest contributor to China's electricity consumption growth. However, we have encountered challenges in assessing the effectiveness of relevant energy policies and know little about the variability of macro factors. Consequently, by employing a decomposition analytical framework at different levels (nation, region, and province), we decompose and quantify the driving forces of REC and demonstrate the dom-inant determinants of REC, the differentiation of these factors across areas, and between urban and rural. The key findings show that urbanization positively affects the urban REC but negatively impacts the rural REC. Increasing per capita consumption expenditure in rural areas has a sustained promoting effect on REC, and the influence de-gree is higher than that in urban areas. The impact of the coal substitution factor on electricity in inland develop-ing regions is much higher than that in developed coastal areas. However,the effect of the coal substitution factor on electricity in less developed rural areas is much higher than that in urban. These findings provide unique insights into the mechanism and dominant driving forces of REC growth and underscore the equality between urban and rural for a sustainable green energy consumption system. (c) 2022 International Energy Initiative. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.