Environmental friendly renewable energy plays an indispensable role in energy industry development. Foreign direct investment (FDI) in advanced renewable energy technology spillover is promising to improve technological capability and promote China’s energy industry performance growth. In this paper, the impacts of FDI renewable energy technology spillover on China’s energy industry performance are analyzed based on theoretical and empirical studies. Firstly, three hypotheses are proposed to illustrate the relationships between FDI renewable energy technology spillover and three energy industry performances including economic, environmental, and innovative performances. To verify the hypotheses, techniques including factor analysis and data envelopment analysis (DEA) are employed to quantify the FDI renewable energy technology spillover and the energy industry performance of China, respectively. Furthermore, a panel data regression model is proposed to measure the impacts of FDI renewable energy technology spillover on China’s energy industry performance. Finally, energy industries of 30 different provinces in China based on the yearbook data from 2005 to 2011 are comparatively analyzed for evaluating the impacts through the empirical research. The results demonstrate that FDI renewable energy technology spillover has positive impacts on China’s energy industry performance. It can also be found that the technology spillover effects are more obvious in economic and technological developed regions. Finally, four suggestions are provided to enhance energy industry performance and promote renewable energy technology spillover in China.

Strategic emerging industries (SEIs) represent the future direction of industrial developments and are crucial in stimulating the overall and long-term development for economy and society. The government plays a key role in promoting the development of SEIs. This paper, for the first time, investigates the cooperation relationship among innovation members, such as enterprises, universities and research institutes in a collaborative innovation network of strategic emerging industries under government intervention. A three-population evolutionary game theory approach was employed under different scenarios for the government acting as the stakeholder, considering the non-profit, definite fit as well as uncertain profit when incentive and punishment policies are adopted. A novel evolutionary game model of the cooperation relationship among collaborative innovation network members under government’s intervention is established. The results of the simulation experiments show that government’s intervention significantly influences the cooperation relationship between enterprises, universities and research institutes. When the sum of financial incentives and punishments is greater than the total additional cost (TAC), enterprises, universities and research institutes should pay for collaborative innovation. Moreover, government’s financial intervention can effectively promote the cooperation between enterprises, universities and research institutes.

Smart grids (SGs) have been widely recognized as an enabling technology for delivering sustainable energy transitions. SGs have a positive effect on the development of the world economy and society. SG construction plays an important role in responding to global climate change and promoting the sustainable development of the world economy and society. Under such a background, this paper attempts to investigate patent collaborations of the SG field in China. Based on the application data of collaborative patents from State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) in China, this study employs complex network theory and social network analysis (SNA) method and conducts in-depth research on the patent collaboration network of SG field in China. The trend of patent collaboration was examined, the collaboration network of SG-related patents was investigated, the network characteristics, and the network structure were also explored. The results show that the proportion of enterprises participating in patent collaboration is relatively large for SG field in China, the percentage of collaboration relationships formed by different patent applicants varies greatly, and that the State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) plays an important role in patent collaboration in SG field currently. It can also be found that patent collaboration is an effective form of cooperative innovation among different entities. Finally, three suggestions are provided in response to the existing problems.