Energy shortages, climate change and environmental pollution are critical issues that the entire world is faced with currently. To tackle the challenge and realize sustainable development, the Chinese government launched the Energy-Saving Generation Dispatch (ESGD) in 2007. In the ESGD scheme, generating units are dispatched based on fuel consumption rates and pollutant emission intensities from low to high. However, annual generation quotas still widely exist With the mandatory shutdown of small-capacity and low-efficiency thermal generating units in 2006-2010, most of the currently running thermal generating units are large-capacity and highly efficient units. The additional improvement of the overall energy efficiency under this situation is a key problem for the Chinese electric power industry. To this end, a new type of ESGD framework is designed in this paper. Sequential coordination among yearly, monthly, day-ahead and real-time generation schedules is proposed. Based on the framework, the corresponding models are formulated. Empirical analysis is conducted using the realistic data obtained from the Guangdong Power Grid Corporation. Four generation dispatch modes are compared. The results indicate that the proposed ESGD mode can further reduce energy consumption and pollutant emissions. Hopefully, this paper can provide a valuable reference for policy making in the Chinese power sector. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.