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Whether Digital Villages Can Alleviate Towns–Rural Clean Energy Consumption Inequality in China?

Xin Wen,Jiaxin Wen,Zhibo Yu

Published 2025 in Sustainability

ABSTRACT

The equitable allocation of clean energy access across towns–rural divides is a critical benchmark of modernization in developing economies. This is because it is intricately linked to the realization of strategic goals such as shared prosperity, ecological civilization advancement, and national energy security reinforcement. This research examines the impact of China’s digital village (DV) construction in reducing the urban–rural disparity in household clean energy access, evaluates the effect on towns–rural clean energy consumption inequality (CEI), explores the mediating mechanisms, and considers regional heterogeneity. It is an innovative approach to test the influence of digital village construction on clean energy consumption inequality between urban and rural areas, beyond which conventional research is limited to infrastructure investment and policy considerations. We can reach the following three results: (1) With the continuous improvement of digital village construction, CEI between towns and rural areas shows an “inverted U-shaped” change. (2) From the perspective of the intermediary mechanism, agricultural technological progress (ATP) and industrial structure upgrading (IND) can facilitate digital village construction and reduce the disparity in clean energy consumption between towns and rural regions. (3) From the perspective of heterogeneity analysis, digital village construction in areas with low urbanization levels, high terrain undulation, and non-clean energy demonstration provinces can significantly alleviate CEI. It is on this basis that the present paper proposes a policy recommendation for the Chinese government to effectively reduce the gap between towns and rural clean energy consumption in the process of digital village construction.

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