Abstract: Calculating energy efficiency and enhancing potential accurately can provide scientific basis for making effective energy-saving emission reduction strategies. In order to improve the deviation of international research of energy efficiency due to the technology heterogeneity, the SBM－Undesirable model and Meta－frontier production function were applied to calculate energy efficiency of 17 members of the APEC area during the period of 1990—2012. At the same time, technology gaps between the APEC members were measured by "meta-technology ratios". From the two dimensions of "technology" and "management", energy inefficiency was decomposed into "technology inefficiency" and "managerial inefficiency" to explore ways to improve the energy efficiency. It found that for developed countries and regions there is no difference in energy efficiency under meta-frontier and group-frontier, while there are significant differences in energy efficiency under the two frontiers for developing countries and regions; the technology gaps between developing countries and the potential optimal technology seems to increase. Developed countries and regions should improve their energy efficiency from the management aspect, and developing countries and regions should improve energy efficiency from both technology and management aspects.