This paper summarizes the main energy policies of China from 1980, and divides them into three groups of policies. Two methods, with and without antitheses and linear regression, are created to evaluate the energy-saving effects of the energy policies. And the energy-saving effects of these three groups of energy policies of China are evaluated by the two methods, respectively. It is concluded that with and without antitheses is used to evaluate short-term effects and linear regression is used to evaluate long-term effects. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.