Rural energy in China: Pattern and policy

The rural energy will play a more and more important role in the whole national energy system along with the rural economic development and deepening and expanding of energy-saving and emission-reduction. Based on available data of rural energy consumption, the spatial and temporal characteristics of rural energy consumption as well as the evolvement of rural energy policy were analyzed. The total energy consumed increased from 307.19 Mt in 1979 to 998.51 Mt in 2008, more than triple. The proportion of non-commercial energy decreased while the proportion of commercial energy increased steadily and biomass energy was no longer in leading position. From the perspective of spatial distribution, the per capita energy consumption in rural China was higher in North than in South, and higher in East than in West. The resources endowment is very crucial to energy consumption structure with respect to local availability. Though the state has been keeping an eyes on rural energy development, the rural energy system is excluded from the state commercial energy supply system and not received in the state strategy system. Restricted by dual structure in urban and rural economy and business segregation, the designing and implication of rural energy policy gave priority to technical policy, and making the policy system lack systematicness, stability, compatibility and continuity by multi-departments, multi-objects and multi-agents.