Can innovation-driven policies enhance Chinese cities’ energy security?

Energy security provides significant support for national security and is essential for addressing the overall strategic concerns of national economic and social development. Exploring the impact of innovation-driven policies on energy security can help to transcend China's energy bottlenecks in the production–supply–storage–sales industrial chain and provide theoretical support and practical insights for policymakers to establish a new era of energy security and promote sustainable energy development. In response, this study constructs a city-level energy security index for China from 2005 to 2022 to empirically analyze the mechanisms and effect of innovation-driven policies on China's urban energy security. The findings reveal that innovation-driven policies can significantly improve urban energy security in China by advancing energy technology innovation, transformation, upgrading, and diversification, and this promotional effect is more significant in China's central and western regions, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, old industrial bases, and regions with strong energy consumption intensity. This study also introduces an n-order nearest neighbor matching matrix into a spatial difference-in-differences model to examine the spatial effect of China's urban energy security under the influence of innovation-driven policies. We find that innovation-driven policies directly promote energy security and pilot innovation cities exhibit spatial spillover effects on nonpilot cities. The findings of this study provide decision-making insights to promote China's scientific and rational energy development planning and policy approaches.