The Impact of New Quality Productive Forces on High-Quality Energy Development: Evidence from China’s Energy Transition

Against the backdrop of an accelerating global energy transition and increasingly stringent carbon reduction targets, achieving high-quality energy development (HED) has emerged as a critical pathway toward green and low-carbon transformation. New quality productive forces (NQPFs) provide a new impetus for advancing HED. Using panel data from 30 Chinese provinces over the period of 2012–2023, this study systematically examines the impact of NQPFs on HED and further investigates the underlying mechanisms, spatial spillover effects, and regional and dimensional heterogeneity. The results reveal that: (1) NQPFs significantly promote HED, and this finding remains robust after a series of robustness checks and endogeneity treatments; (2) mechanism analysis indicates that NQPFs primarily enhance HED by promoting industrial structure upgrading and mitigating resource misallocation; (3) spatial analysis reveals that, while NQPFs significantly improve HED within a region, these generate a significant negative spatial spillover effect on HED in neighboring regions; (4) regional heterogeneity analysis shows that the positive effect of NQPFs is more pronounced in central and western China, resource-dependent regions, and areas with relatively weaker development foundations. Dimensional heterogeneity analysis further demonstrates that NQPFs exert stronger positive effects on the energy coordination, energy sharing, and green energy dimensions of HED. By incorporating NQPFs into the analytical framework of high-quality energy development, this study provides empirical evidence for advancing sustainable energy transformation and formulating differentiated energy governance strategies.