An official from the Department of Policies, Laws and Regulations of MIIT stated that formulating the Measures, improving the mechanisms and measures for industrial energy conservation administration, boosting the energy utilization efficiency of industrial enterprises, and accelerating the green, low-carbon development, transformation and upgrading of the industrial sector constitute vital steps for the industrial economy to stabilize growth, adjust the industrial mix and improve economic returns. It is also an urgent requirement for fulfilling statutory duties in industrial energy conservation management.

The Measures encourage industrial enterprises to strengthen energy-saving technological innovation and transformation. Enterprises are supported to build green factories, develop and apply smart microgrids and distributed photovoltaic power generation, and develop and utilize green, clean and low-carbon energy sources.

The Measures set out specific energy conservation management requirements for key energy-consuming industrial enterprises, which fall into two categories: first, industrial enterprises with an annual comprehensive energy consumption of over 10,000 tons of standard coal; second, industrial enterprises with an annual comprehensive energy consumption ranging from 5,000 tons to less than 10,000 tons of standard coal, as designated by the competent industry and information technology authorities of provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the Central Government.

The Measures stipulate that key energy-consuming industrial enterprises shall carry out benchmarking activities on energy efficiency to strive to become energy efficiency leaders. Such enterprises are encouraged to adopt automation and information technologies to elevate their energy utilization efficiency and energy management capacity.