Effectively alleviating the problem of energy consumption has become a key measure in building a resource-conserving and environment-friendly society in China. How does environmental regulation affect energy consumption in China against the background of continuous adjustment and optimization of industrial structure? In order to answer this question, this paper applies the PCSE method to empirically analyze the direct and indirect effects of different environmental regulations on industrial energy consumption, using the panel data from 30 provinces and cities in China from 2006 to 2017. The results show that: 1) Environmental regulations significantly influence industrial energy consumption. Market incentive environmental regulation performs the best, followed by public supervision environmental regulation,while the impact of command-and-control environmental regulation is weaker; 2) The interaction terms between environmental regulation and industrial structure confirm the comprehensive effect of market incentive and public supervision environmental regulations on energy consumption. Environmental regulations from the government can guide the adjustment and optimization of industrial structure, thereby effectively reducing energy consumption; 3) The threshold regression model of the command-and-control environmental regulation and energy consumption verifies the nonlinear impact.The energy saving effect varies with the degree of environmental regulation. According to the research results, several policy suggestions are put forward, such as paying different attention to the process of carrying out environmental regulation, focusing on its guiding role in the optimization and adjustment of industrial structure, to provide instructive reference and guidance for effectively reducing energy consumption.