In March 2011, China's central government set a new challenging target of reducing its energy intensity by 16% during 2011-2015, after it had achieved a reduction of 19.1% during 2006-2010. And this new target was assigned to provincial authorities in August 2011. However, China's provincial energy-economic developments are unbalanced and different provinces have different key sectors for energy conservation. Most previous studies focused on provincial energy efficiency at the aggregate level, or the three-industry level (or one-digit level). However, whether for policy decision or academic research, it is necessary to further subdivide the sectors. In this paper, we use three indicators (Gini Coefficient, energy consumption share and energy intensity) to compare provincial energy conservation potentials at the two-digit sector level. To our knowledge, this paper is the first one to identify the keys for energy conversation across the 31 provinces x 65 sectors. And the results are shown in visualized maps and matrix tables to help identify the key province x sectors for energy conservation easier. This also helps the central and provincial governments to distinguish key sectors when they monitor the energy conservation progress. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd.