Regional technology gap in energy utilization in China's light industry sector: Non-parametric meta-frontier and sequential DEA methods

China is now faced with severe environmental pollution and energy scarcity. Targeted measures with regard to industrial and regional heterogeneity are essential for a “green” transformation. Energy consumption in China's light industry sector exceeded 300 million tons of standard coal equivalents in 2014, accounting for 8% of total energy use and almost the same as South Korea's total energy consumption. Based on the data of 30 provinces from 2005 to 2014, this paper used meta-frontier method to investigate technology gap in energy utilization in different regions. The main findings are that the eastern region has the most advanced technology, and promoting dissemination of new technology from the eastern to the central region can be effective. Also, infrastructure construction and public services related to energy conservation should be prioritized in the western region. Low labor cost in the central and western regions contributes to a large proportion of SMEs, which threatens the promotion of new energy conservation technology. The inadequate financing system for SMEs worsens the situation.