As fossil fuels consumption and global warming are closely associated with each other, energy consumption has attracted great attention around the world. Especially when China overtook the U.S. as the world's biggest energy consumer in 2010, the time and value for China's peak energy consumption become the focus of world attention. Based on a brief review of existing peak energy consumption methods and models, population and economic development selected as two major driving factors, and using the variation rule of per capita energy consumption during economic development in developed countries as reference, the future energy consumption for China was projected up to 2050. The results showed that: 1) China has great potential to increase per capita energy consumption and the cumulative per capita energy consumption. The probable per capita energy consumption range for China is 4.75-9.31 tce/cap in 2050, the upper limit equivalent to only 76% of the United States'per capita consumption peaks. And the probable energy consumption range for China is 6.19-12.13 billion tce in 2050. While the probable range of cumulative per capita energy consumption for China for 1870-2050 is 207-294 tce, the upper limit equivalent to only 46% of the United States'(56% of Germany and 57% of United Kingdom) cumulative per capita consumption during 1870-2012. 2) Currently, most studies showed that the probable energy consumption peak range for China will be in 2035-2040, with the peak value range of 6.2-7.9 billion tce. This paper argues that in addition to the United States, United Kingdom and Germany Scenarios, the other national scenarios will be unlikely peaked. 3) Under France Scenario the"zero"growth of China's energy con-sumption will occur around 2040, while Japan, South Korea and Baseline scenarios project that a slow growth period of China's energy consumption will occur after 2035, with growth rate about 2%. To sum up, France, Japan and South Korea scenarios are more reasonable and China' s energy consumption is likely to enter a slow growth period since 2035. At present, the level of GDP per capita in China is not high, and the level of per capita energy consumption especially for cumulative per capita energy consumption is low, so it would put ourselves in a passive position in climate change negotiations if we are too optimistic about China's peak energy con-sumption time and value. Based on national conditions of China, we need to leave more energy consumption space for China's social economic development. Last but not least, actively promoting energy-efficient production and adopting an energy-efficient lifestyle will be the key for China's sustainable socio-economic development, energy security and respondence to global climate change.