A review of studies on urban energy performance evaluation

Energy is a foundation for a city to create economic wealth, satisfy people’s desires, and achieve benefits. However, the increasing mismatch between energy supply and demand and the worsening of environmental pollution have highlighted the importance of improving urban energy performance, so the number of studies related to urban energy performance evaluation is increasing. Based on describing the authors, numbers, regional sources, and themes of these studies, this paper reviews and analyzes the conceptions, evaluation indicators, influencing factors, evaluation methods, and evaluation systems related to urban energy performance. Most countries have expressed concern about this topic. Researchers in China, Belgium, and the USA have had the most achievements and collaborations. The concept of urban energy performance further extends to a comprehensive performance. It is measured based on an input-output process. In addition to the original evaluation indicators, new desirable outputs and undesirable outputs are included. Industrial structure, energy price, population density, home car ownership, climate factors, Gini coefficient, health expenditure level, and unemployment rate are regarded as influencing factors. Therefore, a new framework of evaluation indicators and influencing factors is constructed. Stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are commonly used to evaluate. With changes in conceptions, evaluation indicators, and influencing factors, the evaluation method should rather focus on measuring multiple input-output variables, determining the evaluation results and the impacts of factors at the same analysis stage, and highlighting policy orientations. As an important management tool, the evaluation system would continue to be studied and developed.