In response to the government’s reform of the energy pricing mechanism, the market should play a fundamental role in allocating resources. Based on the meta-frontier and slacks-based measure (SBM)-undesirable model, provincial data from 2000 to 2017 in 30 selected provinces of China were employed to analyze energy shadow price and energy environment efficiency of group frontier and meta-frontier in this study. Then, a provincial panel data model was used to analyze the influencing factors of shadow energy prices in China. The results indicate that Chinese energy environment efficiency is low, and regional energy environment efficiencies differ. The technology gap ratio of A: B: C group are 1: 0.571: 0.614, which shows clear technological heterogeneity. Second under the group frontier, China’s energy shadow price is rising, indicating that the economic value of China’s energy factors has increased. The potential room for energy shadow price increase in various provinces is different under the meta-frontier,Yunnan has the greatest potential and Beijing has the lowest potential. Third, government intervention, industrial structure, marketization reform, energy endowment, and energy consumption structure all have remarkable impacts on energy shadow price in a country or region, with different influencing mechanisms. Regional marketization reform has significant positive impact on the energy shadow price in A group. Regional government intervention inhibits the promotion of the energy shadow price in B group. Regional industrial structure inhibits the promotion of the energy shadow price in C group. We conclude that a one size fits all approach is inappropriate when promoting energy market reform and that people should consider the heterogeneity of technology when developing different energy pricing mechanism.