**4. Conclusions and Suggestions**

Based on the analysis results, the following conclusions can be drawn:


Based on the above conclusions, we put forward the following suggestions for improving energy utilization efficiency in China:


of our country, the high-efficiency regions should ensure the stable improvement of efficiency and guide the low-efficiency areas to narrow the regional gap.

**Author Contributions:** W.P. contributed to study design. G.H., W.-L.P. and C.H. collected and analyzed the data. G.H., C.H. and W.-Q.D. interpreted results. W.P. wrote the manuscript. Revision of the manuscript and the final approval of the version to be published: all authors. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Data Availability Statement:** All data have been included in this paper.

**Acknowledgments:** This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (Grant no. 71871169, U1933120). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
