Abstract: Energy poverty is considered as one of the most important issues related to development, and it could restrict further social and economic development. Measuring energy poverty provides the basis for analyzing the status quo of energy poverty and formulating policy initiatives aimed at alleviating the problem of China. This paper proposed a new composite index, China's regional energy poverty index, to measure the regional energy poverty based on international and Chinese energy poverty definitions. This paper found that the severity of energy poverty of China showed downward trend from 2000 to 2011, but to further alleviate energy poverty significantly will rely on specific policies of the government; the rate of energy poverty alleviation is quite different among Chinese provinces, and thus, when developing national energy poverty mitigation policies, the government should consider the regional differences, and focus on the main cause of energy poverty in each region; energy poverty and economic poverty are not consistent in China, so that the policies which aim at alleviating energy poverty should be different from other policies which aim at promoting economic development, upgrading infrastructure and improving people's livelihood in China.