This paper examines how foreign direct investments (FDI) affect energy consumption in the panel data of 29 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) economies from 2000 to 2021. The paper runs several panel data techniques, which concurrently accommodate the dataset's cross-sectional dependency, slope heterogeneity, and structural break concerns in the cointegration. The results show that global FDI positively affects energy consumption. China's FDI dominance also has a favorable effect on energy consumption. In addition, green technologies increase energy consumption. These results emphasise the significance of FDI policies and green technologies regarding promoting energy demand in the BRI economies. •We examine the effects of FDI on energy consumption.•We focus on the panel data of 29 BRI economies from 2000 to 2021.•We run various panel data techniques to address several issues.•FDI and China's FDI positively affect energy consumption.•Green technologies increase energy consumption.