The scientific evaluation of trends in China's future energy demands is highly important. Using provincial-level panel data from 1995 to 2015, we studied the relationships between the economic aggregate, the development of energy-intensive industries and energy demand from the perspective of changes in the proportion of energy-intensive industries in the national economy. We find that economic aggregate affects energy demand through energy-intensive industries and that changes in the economic structure are the key factor for change in energy demand. This means that China's future energy demand will be much lower than that contained in forecasts that did not consider this factor. Comprehensively promoting green-tech development and strengthening the regulation of energy-extensive industries will be one of the key options for realizing China's objective of controlling total energy consumption.