Decoupling analysis and forecast of economic growth from electricity consumption in the Yangtze River Delta region, China

Decoupling economic growth from electricity consumption is essential for energy conservation and emission reduction. Firstly, this paper applies the LMDI decomposition model to analyze the driving factors of electricity consumption in the Yangtze River Delta region. Secondly, scenario analysis and Monte Carlo technique are combined to research the evolutionary trend of electricity consumption from 2020 to 2035, so as to further analyze the decoupling state. Finally, using nonparametric kernel density estimation, this paper studies the evolution trend of decoupling state from 2005 to 2035. The results show that (1) economic growth is the main factor that promotes the increase of total electricity consumption. Domestic intensity and population scale contribute to the increase in total electricity consumption. The primary factor inhibiting the increase of total electricity consumption is production intensity, while industrial structure and urbanization level contribute to the decrease in total electricity consumption. (2) From 2005 to 2035, the decoupling level has been optimizing on the whole, and the internal gap has also reduced, but there still exists obvious internal gap. (3) Under the three scenarios, the evolution trend of production and domestic electricity consumption is the same. During 2020–2035, the production and domestic electricity consumption both show an increasing trend, with the total electricity consumption under the baseline scenario being the highest, followed by the general and the enhanced electricity-saving scenario. Combined with the empirical results of this paper, some policy recommendations are proposed.