The power of digital empowerment in the process of energy low-carbon transition: Dimension decomposition and path exploration

To explore the impact mechanism and boundary conditions of digital empowerment on China's low-carbon energy transition, this paper conducts a study using multiple empirical analysis methods, with panel data from 285 prefecture-level cities and above in China from 2012 to 2022 as the sample. The results show that digital empowerment has a significant promoting effect on the low-carbon transformation of energy and presents distinct temporal characteristics. In the long-term dimension, the intensity of its impact gradually increases as the integration of digital technology and energy systems deepens. The short-term effect exhibits an inverted U-shaped dynamic trajectory, where the effect reaches a peak in the short term and then fluctuates and declines as the adaptation process unfolds. This impact also has obvious threshold characteristics. When the per capita GDP and the actual amount of foreign capital used reach specific levels, the promoting effect of digital empowerment on low-carbon energy transformation will increase significantly. Spatially, the impact of digital empowerment exhibits the characteristic of geographical radiation attenuation, and the cross-regional indirect spillover effect weakens significantly beyond a certain distance. Mechanistic analysis reveals that economic growth, technical support, optimization of enterprise energy consumption, and upgrading of household energy structures are the core pathways through which digital empowerment drives the low-carbon transition of energy.