A large amount of literature on China's energy intensity seldom considers the regional differences of energy intensity inside China and the spatial effects. Based on spatial statistics methods, this paper explores the regional imbalance of China's provincial energy intensity and the spatially correlation of energy intensity among provinces. Using spatial panel data models, this paper finds that GDP per capita, transportation infrastructure, the level of marketization, and scientific and technological input significantly reduce the energy intensity; the ratio of heavy industries to total industries and the ratio of coal consumption to total energy consumption significantly expand the energy intensity; meanwhile, the coefficient of the ratio of export to GDP is not significant. Then, the spillover and convergence of China's regional energy intensity have been tested. The results indicate that the spillover effect between the eastern and western China is remarkable, and there exist absolute beta-convergence of provincial energy intensity. Moreover, GDP per capita, transportation infrastructure, the level of marketization and scientific & technological input are conducive to conditional convergence after the spatial effects are controlled. According to the empirical results, this paper proposes some policy suggestions on reducing China's energy intensity. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.