<p>Urban morphology has proved to greatly impact energy demand, which bring in a promising research field of searching optimal morphologies for an energy-efficient urban design. To reveal this, this study selected 38 residential blocks in Jiangsu Province, China, and created and validated the energy model for the blocks using real energy data within an average calibration rate of 7.6%. Finally, the study abstracted urban morphology and energy indices during the planning and design stages and established their relationship to inform urban design strategies. For urban planning, the higher land area of the community will improve total energy, energy use intensity, and monthly energy peak, with an average 0.748 of R², while the increase in floor area ratio can improve the energy efficiency of community with 0.617 of R². For urban design, the results show the increase of average shape ratio, average perimeter area ratio, building surface area to land area ratio, height-to-width ratio in east direction and average height will promote the decrease of community energy consumption index and renewable energy index. height-to-width ratio in both the south, and the north direction. The increase in the height-to-width ratio of the block layer will help significantly reduce energy demand, while which in the west direction will have a weak impact on energy demand.</p>