IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/enepol/v206y2025ics0301421525002836.html

Strengthening the resilience of urban energy systems amid renewable energy transition: A new method based on double machine learning

Author

Listed:
  • Mo, Shu
  • Liu, Xinghua

Abstract

Renewable energy transition can fully leverage transformative potential and provide impetus for improving the resilience of urban energy systems. This study takes China's Plan on Clean Energy Accommodation as a quasi-natural experiment and employs a dual machine learning model to explore the impact of the renewable energy transition on the resilience of urban energy systems, as well as the underlying mechanisms. It also examines the regional coordination effects of this transition. The findings reveal that the renewable energy transition significantly strengthens the resilience of urban energy systems. A heterogeneity analysis further shows that the transition has a more pronounced positive influence on energy system resilience in economically developed regions, northern cities, and those with high carbon emissions. Mechanism analysis indicates that the renewable energy transition enhances resilience through four main channels: promoting low-carbon awareness, reducing climate risks, improving energy efficiency, and increasing marketization. Additionally, the transition diminishes traditional geographical advantages, helping to narrow disparities in energy system resilience at the national, regional, and provincial levels, thereby demonstrating notable regional coordination effects. This study offers important insights for a deeper comprehension of the value of the renewable energy transition and for exploring ways to enhance urban energy system resilience.

Suggested Citation

  • Mo, Shu & Liu, Xinghua, 2025. "Strengthening the resilience of urban energy systems amid renewable energy transition: A new method based on double machine learning," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 206(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:206:y:2025:i:c:s0301421525002836
    DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421525002836
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.enpol.2025.114776?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Siquan & Du, Anna Min & Lin, Boqiang, 2025. "Market mechanisms for energy transition: Fossil energy price shocks and irrational renewable energy financing," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    2. Harold D. Chiang & Kengo Kato & Yukun Ma & Yuya Sasaki, 2022. "Multiway Cluster Robust Double/Debiased Machine Learning," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(3), pages 1046-1056, June.
    3. Tiwari, Sunil & Shahzad, Umer & Alofaysan, Hind & Walsh, Steven T. & Kumari, Pooja, 2024. "How do renewable energy, energy innovation and climate change shape the energy transition in USA? Unraveling the role of green finance development," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    4. Shrestha, Anil & Mustafa, Andy Ali & Htike, Myo Myo & You, Vithyea & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2022. "Evolution of energy mix in emerging countries: Modern renewable energy, traditional renewable energy, and non-renewable energy," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 199(C), pages 419-432.
    5. Wang, Xueyang & Sun, Xiumei & Ahmad, Mahmood & Chen, Jiawei, 2024. "Energy transition, ecological governance, globalization, and environmental sustainability: Insights from the top ten emitting countries," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    6. Li, Xue & Du, Xiaoxue & Jiang, Tao & Zhang, Rufeng & Chen, Houhe, 2022. "Coordinating multi-energy to improve urban integrated energy system resilience against extreme weather events," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    7. Liang, Shuai & Wang, Peng & Jia, Cunlu & Zhu, Jialan, 2023. "Studying green financing, factor allocation efficiency, and regional productivity growth in renewable energy industries," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C), pages 130-139.
    8. Zhang, Zhenhua & Zhao, Mingcheng & Chen, Yongxi & Song, Melody C. & Gao, Yue & Feng, Yanchao, 2025. "The nexus between energy legislation, energy transition, and energy resilience: Evidence from 55 countries worldwide," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 324(C).
    9. Shang, Yuping & Sang, Shenghu & Tiwari, Aviral Kumar & Khan, Salahuddin & Zhao, Xin, 2024. "Impacts of renewable energy on climate risk: A global perspective for energy transition in a climate adaptation framework," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 362(C).
    10. Igliński, Bartłomiej & Kiełkowska, Urszula & Pietrzak, Michał Bernard & Skrzatek, Mateusz & Kumar, Gopalakrishnan & Piechota, Grzegorz, 2023. "The regional energy transformation in the context of renewable energy sources potential," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 218(C).
    11. Ron Martin, 2012. "Regional economic resilience, hysteresis and recessionary shocks," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-32, January.
    12. Li, Renyu & Ma, Zhongxin & Chen, Xirong, 2020. "Historical market genes, marketization and economic growth in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 327-333.
    13. Roege, Paul E. & Collier, Zachary A. & Mancillas, James & McDonagh, John A. & Linkov, Igor, 2014. "Metrics for energy resilience," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 249-256.
    14. Liu, Xiaoqian & Jia, You & Zhu, Conghao & Wang, Chang’an & Yao, Jian, 2025. "Policy-driven innovation: Does the renewable energy development initiative foster corporate innovation in renewable energy technologies?," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    15. Reggiani, Aura, 2013. "Network resilience for transport security: Some methodological considerations," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 63-68.
    16. Jiang, Mingdong & Yu, Xinxin, 2025. "Enhancing the resilience of urban energy systems: The role of artificial intelligence," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    17. Patrick T. Brown & Ken Caldeira, 2017. "Greater future global warming inferred from Earth’s recent energy budget," Nature, Nature, vol. 552(7683), pages 45-50, December.
    18. Muhlis Can & Zahoor Ahmed, 2023. "Towards sustainable development in the European Union countries: Does economic complexity affect renewable and non‐renewable energy consumption?," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(1), pages 439-451, February.
    19. Jonathan J. Buonocore & Patrick Luckow & Gregory Norris & John D. Spengler & Bruce Biewald & Jeremy Fisher & Jonathan I. Levy, 2016. "Health and climate benefits of different energy-efficiency and renewable energy choices," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 100-105, January.
    20. Wang, Ying & Zhang, Dayong & Ji, Qiang & Shi, Xunpeng, 2020. "Regional renewable energy development in China: A multidimensional assessment," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 124(C).
    21. Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Chetverikov & Mert Demirer & Esther Duflo & Christian Hansen & Whitney Newey & James Robins, 2018. "Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 21(1), pages 1-68, February.
    22. Yang, Zikun & Zhang, Mingming & Liu, Liyun & Zhou, Dequn, 2022. "Can renewable energy investment reduce carbon dioxide emissions? Evidence from scale and structure," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    23. Xiuzhi He & Samiha Khan & Ilhan Ozturk & Muntasir Murshed, 2023. "The role of renewable energy investment in tackling climate change concerns: Environmental policies for achieving SDG‐13," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(3), pages 1888-1901, June.
    24. Wang, Jianlong & Wang, Weilong & Liu, Yong & Wu, Haitao, 2023. "Can industrial robots reduce carbon emissions? Based on the perspective of energy rebound effect and labor factor flow in China," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    25. Syed Abdul Rehman Khan & Danish Iqbal Godil & Zhang Yu & Farwa Abbas & Muhammad Asif Shamim, 2022. "Adoption of renewable energy sources, low‐carbon initiatives, and advanced logistical infrastructure—an step toward integrated global progress," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 275-288, February.
    26. Xiaosan, Zhang & Qingquan, Jiang & Shoukat Iqbal, Khattak & Manzoor, Ahmad & Zia Ur, Rahman, 2021. "Achieving sustainability and energy efficiency goals: Assessing the impact of hydroelectric and renewable electricity generation on carbon dioxide emission in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    27. Sanya Carley & David M. Konisky, 2020. "The justice and equity implications of the clean energy transition," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 5(8), pages 569-577, August.
    28. Juan Carlos Muñoz & Sebastian Oliva H. & Enzo Sauma, 2024. "Effect of Combining Carbon Policies and Price Controls in Cross-Border Trade of Energy on Renewable Generation Investments," The Energy Journal, , vol. 45(1), pages 81-103, January.
    29. Ai, Hongshan & Tan, Xiaoqing & Mangla, Sachin Kumar & Emrouznejad, Ali & Liu, Fan & Song, Malin, 2025. "Renewable energy transition and sustainable development: Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 143(C).
    30. Zhou, Sheng & Tong, Qing & Pan, Xunzhang & Cao, Min & Wang, Hailin & Gao, Ji & Ou, Xunmin, 2021. "Research on low-carbon energy transformation of China necessary to achieve the Paris agreement goals: A global perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(C).
    31. Ron Martin & Peter Sunley, 2015. "On the notion of regional economic resilience: conceptualization and explanation," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(1), pages 1-42.
    32. Yi, Yuxin & Zhang, Liming & Du, Lei & Sun, Helin, 2024. "Cross-regional integration of renewable energy and corporate carbon emissions: Evidence from China's cross-regional surplus renewable energy spot trading pilot," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    33. Su, Q. & Zhou, P. & Ding, H. & Xydis, G., 2024. "Transition towards a hybrid energy system: Combined effects of renewable portfolio standards and carbon emission trading," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    34. de Lucena, André Frossard Pereira & Szklo, Alexandre Salem & Schaeffer, Roberto & de Souza, Raquel Rodrigues & Borba, Bruno Soares Moreira Cesar & da Costa, Isabella Vaz Leal & Júnior, Amaro Olimpio P, 2009. "The vulnerability of renewable energy to climate change in Brazil," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 879-889, March.
    35. Cao, Shanshan & Huang, Lin & Zhang, Qingping & hán, Zǐ, 2024. "Energy transition to green energy sources – Role of socioeconomic disparities and administrative policies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 312(C).
    36. Zhao, Xiaomeng & Zhao, Jun & Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad, 2025. "Is energy system resilience improved in the energy transition? Evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    37. Olabi, A.G. & Abdelkareem, Mohammad Ali, 2022. "Renewable energy and climate change," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    38. Islam, Md. Monirul & Irfan, Muhammad & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Vo, Xuan Vinh, 2022. "Renewable and non-renewable energy consumption in Bangladesh: The relative influencing profiles of economic factors, urbanization, physical infrastructure and institutional quality," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 184(C), pages 1130-1149.
    39. Wang, Zengchuan & Xi, Yanling & Li, Li & Lei, Yalin & Wu, Sanmang & Cui, Yanfang & Chen, Jiabin, 2025. "The spatial-temporal characterization of the driving factors of China's energy transition and prediction of future transition potential," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 249(C).
    40. Yang, Zhaofu & Liu, Hong & Yuan, Yongna & Li, Muhua, 2024. "Can renewable energy development facilitate China's sustainable energy transition? Perspective from Energy Trilemma," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    41. Sharifi, Ayyoob & Yamagata, Yoshiki, 2016. "Principles and criteria for assessing urban energy resilience: A literature review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 1654-1677.
    42. Zhang, Xinmin & Wang, Miao & Zang, Hong, 2025. "Renewable energy technology innovation, climate risk, and carbon emission reduction: A cross-country analysis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    43. Molyneaux, Lynette & Brown, Colin & Wagner, Liam & Foster, John, 2016. "Measuring resilience in energy systems: Insights from a range of disciplines," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1068-1079.
    44. Benjamin K. Sovacool & Raphael J. Heffron & Darren McCauley & Andreas Goldthau, 2016. "Energy decisions reframed as justice and ethical concerns," Nature Energy, Nature, vol. 1(5), pages 1-6, May.
    45. Healy, Noel & Barry, John, 2017. "Politicizing energy justice and energy system transitions: Fossil fuel divestment and a “just transition”," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 451-459.
    46. Rachel Griffith & Stephen Redding & John Van Reenen, 2004. "Mapping the Two Faces of R&D: Productivity Growth in a Panel of OECD Industries," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(4), pages 883-895, November.
    47. Lee, Chien-Chiang & Wang, Tianhui, 2024. "The impact of renewable energy policies on the energy transition -– An empirical analysis of Chinese cities," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    48. Christopher M. Dent, 2015. "China's renewable energy development: policy, industry and business perspectives," Asia Pacific Business Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(1), pages 26-43, January.
    49. Verma, Piyush & Patel, Nitish & Nair, Nirmal-Kumar C. & Brent, Alan C., 2018. "Improving the energy efficiency of the New Zealand economy: A policy comparison with other renewable-rich countries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 506-517.
    50. Suman, A., 2021. "Role of renewable energy technologies in climate change adaptation and mitigation: A brief review from Nepal," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    51. Martí-Ballester, Carmen-Pilar, 2019. "Do European renewable energy mutual funds foster the transition to a low-carbon economy?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 1299-1309.
    52. Dong, Kangyin & Dong, Xiucheng & Jiang, Qingzhe & Zhao, Jun, 2021. "Assessing energy resilience and its greenhouse effect: A global perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    53. Yang, Jingna & Zhou, Kaile & Hu, Rong, 2024. "City-level resilience assessment of integrated energy systems in China," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 193(C).
    54. Bogdanov, Dmitrii & Ram, Manish & Aghahosseini, Arman & Gulagi, Ashish & Oyewo, Ayobami Solomon & Child, Michael & Caldera, Upeksha & Sadovskaia, Kristina & Farfan, Javier & De Souza Noel Simas Barbos, 2021. "Low-cost renewable electricity as the key driver of the global energy transition towards sustainability," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarıman, Güncel & Keçebaş, Ali, 2026. "Global renewable energy forecasting using hybrid ML/DL models: Economic and geospatial insights," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    2. Wang, Shaohua & Xu, Jinglei & Cheng, Mengrui & Zhang, Wei, 2025. "Measurement and influencing factors of China’s energy transition level from the perspective of the low-carbon and resilience two-dimensional game," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Wei, Tie & Yalikun, Tuerhong & Duan, Zhicheng & Yao, Xiao, 2025. "Regional disparities and variation sources decomposition of energy system resilience in China," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 330(C).
    2. Wu, Qiqi & Chen, Wei, 2026. "How can carbon finance drive renewable energy resilience? Insights from spatial spillovers," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 346(C).
    3. Zhang, Zhenhua & Wu, Huangbin & Zhang, Yunpeng & Hu, Shilei & Pan, Yuxi & Feng, Yanchao, 2024. "Does digital global value chain participation reduce energy resilience? Evidence from 49 countries worldwide," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 208(C).
    4. Wang, Chang-song & Chen, Wei & Zheng, Yang & Dai, Qin, 2025. "Bridge the gap: nexus between artificial intelligence and urban energy resilience, evidence from low-carbon city in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    5. Chen, Pengyu & Chu, Zhongzhu & Dagestani, Abd Alwahed & Han, Hui, 2025. "Responding to SDG13: Exploring the role of renewable energy in physical climate risk governance," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 338(C).
    6. Zhang, Xu & Hu, Shoufa & Naeem, Muhammad Abubakr & Rauf, Abdul, 2026. "Climate change vulnerability and the resilience of energy consumption," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    7. Wu, Liangpeng & Feng, Xinlei & Zhou, Xiaoyong & Zhu, Qingyuan & Zhou, Dequn, 2026. "Measuring energy resilience via risk absorption: High-frequency evidence from China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    8. Zhao, Jun & Lei, Yalin & Huang, Hongyun & Zhao, Xiaomeng, 2025. "Empowering resilience of urban energy system in China: How does digital economy matter?," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 1575-1594.
    9. Dong, Kangyin & Dong, Xiucheng & Jiang, Qingzhe & Zhao, Jun, 2021. "Assessing energy resilience and its greenhouse effect: A global perspective," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 104(C).
    10. Lili Liu & Tiantian Feng & Cheng Zhong & Mingli Cui & Haoran Wang, 2025. "Synergy pathway innovation of carbon emission trading, tradable green certificate and green power trading policies: achieving China’s dual carbon goals," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-28, December.
    11. Mujjuni, F. & Betts, T. & To, L.S. & Blanchard, R.E., 2021. "Resilience a means to development: A resilience assessment framework and a catalogue of indicators," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    12. Bu, Zheng & Zeng, Sheng & Zhao, Xingqi, 2025. "Spatial-temporal evolution characteristics and critical factors identification of China's energy trilemma index," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 333(C).
    13. Huang, Xinpeng & Wen, Huwei, 2025. "The constraining dynamics of political instability on renewable energy development: International evidence," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 246(C).
    14. Jan-Philipp Sasse & Evelina Trutnevyte, 2023. "A low-carbon electricity sector in Europe risks sustaining regional inequalities in benefits and vulnerabilities," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-15, December.
    15. Wan, Kaidi & Liu, Bing-Yue & Fan, Ying & Ikonnikova, Svetlana A., 2024. "Modelling and assessing dynamic energy supply resilience to disruption events: An oil supply disruption case in China," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    16. Inseok Seo & Youhyun Lee, 2024. "Identifying typologies of synthetic energy justice: Eco-centric and anthropocentric perspectives," Energy & Environment, , vol. 35(6), pages 3297-3315, September.
    17. Su, Rui & Chen, Bin & Wang, Saige & Duan, Cuncun, 2024. "Energy technical resilience assessment based on complex network analysis – A case study of China," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 364(C).
    18. Ye, Shiqi & Zhang, Hongyin & Zhou, Mo & Zheng, Tingguo, 2025. "Assessing energy sector resilience to adverse shocks: A scenario-based QVAR approach," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).
    19. Raza, Ahmad & Shakeel, Moonis, 2025. "Analysing research patterns on low carbon development, climate change mitigation and renewable energy through text analytics: An artificial intelligence approach," Innovation and Green Development, Elsevier, vol. 4(3).
    20. Shunan Fan & Yuhuan Zhao & Sumin Zuo, 2025. "Financial Development and Energy Transition: A Literature Review," Energies, MDPI, vol. 18(15), pages 1-28, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:enepol:v:206:y:2025:i:c:s0301421525002836. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/enpol .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.