Study On The Total Factors Energy Efficiency And Its Influencing Factors Under The Carbon Emission Constraint In Hunan Province

As Hunan being in a critical period of new industrialization and urbanization development, the demand of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions increase rapidly, which give rise to severely environmental pressure. In the face of energy demand and environmental pollution dual pressure in the sustainable economic development, improving energy efficiency and promoting low-carbon development are the key point to solve the problem. Therefore, under the current background of “two-oriented society” and “energy conservation” in Hunan Province, researching energy efficiency under carbon emission constraint shows the important practical significance. This paper, putting the undesirable output(CO2) of energy inputted into the Total Factor Energy Efficiency Measurement Model, studies total factor energy efficiency in Hunan Province from 2005 to 2012 and makes empirical analysis of its influencing factors, which proposes appropriate policy recommendations for Hunan improving energy efficiency.Studies show that total factor energy efficiency levels in Hunan sample period is overall low, only being 0.660, indicating that extensive mode of economic development still exists and Hunan’s energy saving space is very large, while during the sample period, the province’s energy efficiency gets gradual promotion. However, total factor energy efficiency obvious differences among regions, the energy efficiency value in Zhangjiajie City being the highest, reaching 0.926, followed by Changde City, Changsha, ranking second and third respectively, while Loudi City getting the lowest, only being 0.350. As the province’s largest economic region, CZT district made its total factor energy efficiency improving significantly in 2008, thanking greatly to be approved as a “two-oriented society” test area, adopting a series of energy saving measures to promote energy efficiency. Besides, energy saving potential of various regions are analyzed, Loudi, Xiangtan, Yueyang City, Chenzhou City and Zhuzhou City are "energy-hungry" cities, which is the focus of the regional energy remediation. Loudi, Xiangtan and Chenzhou show the largest emission reduction potential, and more than 80% of energy could be saved, at the same time, CO2 emissions has huge room for improvement. From the geographical distribution, the southern area of Hunan shows relatively low energy efficiency, the total energy savings accounted for 42% of the province’s, and total CO2 emissions accounted for 55% of that, which demonstrates that the southern Hunan become key areas for emission reduction. Results from the Total Factor Energy Efficiency Measurement Model shows that industrial structure, opening up and technological progress have significant negative impact on Hunan energy efficiency, while economies scale, the degree of information and the level of urbanization has positive impact on that in a certain level of significance. Finally, combining these empirical findings above, it proposes energy efficiency improving strategy under background of Hunan constructing "two-oriented society".