AbstractThe circulation cooling system is an important auxiliary system in industry and has great potential for saving energy. However, a holistic energy savings retrofit of the system can cause high costs and a low input–output ratio. To address this problem, this paper integrates grey correlation analysis and partial correlation analysis to propose a new energy savings bottleneck diagnosis method for the circulating cooling system. This method deeply analyzes the operation mechanism of the industrial circulating cooling system and summarizes the main energy‐savings factor. Through the energy savings bottleneck diagnosis method based on grey correlation analysis and partial correlation analysis, the energy savings correlation coefficient and energy savings difference coefficient are calculated, and the relationship between each energy savings factor and the specific energy consumption is accurately described and quantified. Furthermore, the system energy savings bottleneck diagnosis is performed and the quantified energy savings priority of each system link is obtained. It can effectively guide the implementation of system energy savings optimization and retrofit. Finally, the effectiveness of the diagnosis method is demonstrated by simulation verification with actual network data.