In recent years, under the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutrality", energy conservation and consumption reduction in industrial enterprises have attracted wide attention. As the second largest power source, the energy saving and efficiency improvement of air compressor is one of the key work at present. In this paper, technical analysis and research are carried out on four different driving forms of air compressors that are electric-driven, steam-driven of back pressure heating unit, steam-driven of condensing heating unit and steam-driven of condensing non-heating unit. Combined with the technical characteristics, the primary energy consumption, carbon emission and energy cost of compressed air are analyzed and compared. The results show that electric air compressor has the lowest carbon emissions and the highest energy costs, and the steam-driven air compressor coupled with the condensing heating unit or condensing non-heating unit has the worst effect than others in the primary energy consumption and carbon emissions. The steam-driven air compressor coupled with the back pressure heating unit is better than the electric air compressor in terms of primary energy consumption and carbon emission of compressed air.