Understanding drivers for energy consumption is important for economic and environmentally sustainable development. To explore this issue, the SDA (structural decomposition analysis) method based on input-output theory was used to analyze the influencing mechanism of energy consumption in one of the top energy consumers, Guangdong Province in China, during 2002 to 2012. We divided the process into 2 stages: before and after the global financial crisis. The main conclusions are as follows:
1) Economic activity and population size are the main driving factors for the increase in energy consumption, while energy consumption intensity is the main factor restraining the increment, and the effects of final demand structure on energy consumption transformed from positive before the global financial crisis to negative after the global financial crisis.
2) Analysis of allocation of energy consumption changes caused by final demands shows that international and domestic trade had significant effects on changes in energy consumption. Although energy consumption embodied in international exports decreased after the global financial crisis, it is still the most significant important driver for the increments. Guangdong is a net exporter of embodied energy through international trade, while its energy-saving achievement is partly due to embodied energy transfers via China’s domestic trade.