Abstract The continuously accelerating global energy demand leads to increased public concern about climate change. The international community expects China, the world's largest energy consumer, to play a leading role in the energy transition, especially since the United States has withdrawn from the Paris Agreement. This special issue on “Energy Demand in Emerging and Developing Economies: Measurement, Policy Interventions and Evaluation” improves international understanding of the patterns of energy demand in China by presenting recent experimental and empirical research following the Beijing Energy Conference in 2018. The main purpose of this introductory article is to present recent research advances by summarizing new findings and insights from this special issue, combined with recent literature. It shows that China's rising energy demand and energy transition practices have led to numerous policy interventions, which provides rich observational data on behavioral change and offers an “experimental window” with large opportunities for scholars. Beyond the traditional topics of residential and industrial energy demand and its drivers, an increasing number of studies focuses on energy policy evaluation or quantify the environmental and climate consequences of energy consumption. This new line of research, supported by policy-oriented model-based quantitative analyses, experimental approaches and econometric analyses using multi-source disaggregated data, offers new insights into various aspects of China's energy demand.