Current Situation and Prospect of Rural Energy Development
Xinfa Tang
1,a
, Ying Huang
2,b
1
School of economics and management, Jiangxi Science & Technology Normal University, Nanchang,China
2
Class 1 Grade17 Financial Management,School of economics and management, Jiangxi Science & Technology Normal
University, Nanchang
Keywords: Rural energy development, energy industry, new energy.
Abstract: Rural energy is one of the important components of energy system in China and the important material
foundation of building beautiful countryside. Coal plays a leading role in rural energy consumption, the coal
consumption in rural life energy accounts for 33.8 percent, and the coal consumption in rural production and
energy use accounts for 1.5 percent. The current situation of energy development is unreasonable. Rural
energy industry development started, but the technical level is low. In addition, the use of renewable energy
is relatively low, the current energy consumption in rural areas is unreasonable, causing great harm to the
environment, the development of new energy has become the general trend of rural energy development at
the present stage.
1 INTRODUCTION
In order to understand the development of energy in
rural areas, promote the development of rural energy
economy, and realize rural poverty alleviation. From
the current situation of rural energy development,
industrial status, rural energy utilization, the
development of new energy, and so on.
First, the current situation of energy use in rural
areas is unreasonable, the rural energy industry has
started and developed steadily and the
regionalization of industrial scale.
2 CURRENT SITUATION OF
RURAL ENERGY
CONSUMPTION
2.1Rural Energy Production and
Consumption System
Rural energy supply and demand system includes
two aspects of rural energy consumption and
production, while energy consumption mainly
includes living energy and production energy.
Among them, life energy includes cooking, heating,
lighting, etc. production energy includes planting,
breeding and primary processing of agricultural
energy, etc. Rural energy supply includes external
commodity energy input and internal energy
development in rural areas. Energy development in
rural areas includes the development of various
renewable energy sources, such as fuel ethanol,
biodiesel, briquettes and other renewable energy
sources such as hydro, wind, solar and geothermal
energy, as well as fuelwood. Development of
traditional biomass energy such as straw and direct
combustion. The internal energy of rural areas also
has both commercial and non-commodity energy,
even the same kind of energy may be both as
commodity energy and non-commodity energy, such
as biogas, solar energy and so on. In general, the
proportion of non-commodity energy consumption
in rural life is still very large, accounting for the
largest proportion is coal, straw, fuelwood and so on.
The consumption of coal is dominant and the
consumption of clean energy and renewable energy
is relatively small. It can be seen that the current
consumption structure of energy consumption in
rural areas is unreasonable, like Fig.1.

Note: the data is the statistical data of rural energy &
environment agency, ministry of agriculture, unit 10000 tons
standard coal, the following picture is the same.
Fig.1 .National Consumption Structure for living.
2.2 Current Situation of Energy
Consumption and Production in
Rural Areas
Commodity energy accounts for a large proportion
of rural energy consumption, in which the largest
proportion is coal, refined oil, electricity and so on.
Rural production and energy use is basically
dependent on the national unified energy supply
system. But on the whole, the rural production of
energy-using coal is dominant, and the clean energy
and renewable energy are relatively low, like Fig.1.
Fig.2 National Rural Energy Consumption Structure.
2.3 Regional Characteristics of Energy
Use in Rural Life
The most important factor affecting the total energy
use in rural areas is the number of population, in
addition, it is also related to the conditions of
regional temperature, the level of economic
development, the living habits of farmers and so on.
The proportion of commodity energy is mainly
restricted by regional economic conditions and
energy resource endowment.
3 CURRENT SITUATION OF
RURAL ENERGY INDUSTRY
Rural energy production in China mainly includes
biomass energy development (biogas, direct-fired
power generation, briquetting fuel, applied scientific
fuel, ect.), solar thermal utilization (solar water
heater, heat pump, solar house, ect.) Solar cooker
and so on, small power (including off-grid solar
photovoltaic, off-grid small wind power generation
and so on. In recent years, the rural energy industry
has shown a good development trend in general, the
biomass energy and the forming fuel industry
technology have made great progress. The biogas
industry has entered the stage of transformation and
upgrading, the solar energy utilization industry
continues to keep steady development, and the small
power industry is in the ascendant, like Tab.1.
Tab.1 Biogas engineering and household biogas
production in China.

Note: Data from Agriculture Department of Agricultural
Ecology and Resources Conservation Summary Statistics.
3.1Rural Energy Industry Scale
A 、 Biomass power generation. Biomass energy
generation is mainly distributed in the eastern
coastal areas, with the most dense in East China,
while the southwest region is restricted by resource
endowment, topography and climate conditions, and
biomass energy direct combustion power generation
projects are reduced.
B、 Biogas. Biogas in China is in the critical
stage of transformation and upgrading. The
provinces with large capacity of biogas project are
mainly Guangdong, Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi and so
on, mainly distributed in the southern region of
China. In recent years, affected by livestock farming
patterns, changes in farmers’ lifestyles, and the
transfer of young rural labor, the phenomenon of
stopping or inefficient operation of biogas in the
whole country has become more common. The
construction of socialized service system in
operation and maintenance should not be ignored.
C、Biomass briquetting fuel. It is mainly used in
urban heating and industrial heating and other fields.
Biomass briquetting fuel production scale is very
small, mainly in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl
River Delta region industrialization demonstration
effect is the best. Heating with biomass energy
forming fuel is an important measure to prevent and
control air pollution and reduce coal consumption,
especially for heating in rural areas of northern
China, which is one of the important directions for
the development and utilization of biomass energy in
the near future.
3.2Rural Energy Calculation
At present, rural energy has not yet established a
comprehensive, multi-dimensional technology
research and development new system, the overall
technological research and development innovation
capacity is not strong, the level of technological
development is still not high, especially in rural
renewable energy development technology economy
needs to be further improved.[1]
4 PROBLEMS IN RURAL ENERGY
UTILIZATION
Energy efficiency is low, energy waste and shortage
coexist and investment is high. Especially in rural
areas, solar energy utilization is more dispersed, off-
grid solar power generation and off-gird wind power
generation are rare, comprehensive utilization rate is
not high. The investment of micro-hydropower is
relatively high, but limited by geographical
environment, the popularization rate is low. Especially
in the use of biogas energy, is based on household
units, decentralized investment, low degree of
intensification. The overall utilization rate of energy is
not high because of the scattered utilization of energy.
nergy consumption exerts great pressure on
environment. The demand for coal in most rural areas
is still high, especially in the north. The development
of small coal mines in some rural areas has increased
the damage to the environment. Straw and firewood
are still the main sources of energy for living in rural
areas. The destruction of vegetation, the increase of air
pollution, and the prevention of the atmosphere have
brought great problems.
The legal system and the Government’s Capital
support are not enough in the Construction of New
Energy in the Countryside. At present, the national
legal system supporting measures in rural new
energy construction is almost blank. It is urgent for
governments at all levels to issue relevant legal
documents, standardize all kinds of energy
construction, and achieve a balance between the
rational use of energy and the effective force of
environmental protection.[2]
5 MEASURES TO PROMOTE
RURAL ENERGY
DEVELOPMENT
Develop energy resources in various regions
according to local conditions. Due to the
regionalization of energy consumption in various
regions, we can develop energy according to the
conditions of economy, climate, topography and so
on, and realize the rational development of energy
resources in different regions. For example, the
region of Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang is suitable
for developing wind energy, while the region of
Tibet is suitable for developing solar energy, the
northern region is suitable for developing coal
energy, and the southern region is suitable for
developing water energy.
To raise awareness of the importance of rural
energy development. The state should launch talents,
encourage scientific researchers to study energy
problems, realize the high utilization of energy and

reduce the destruction of the ecological
environment. At the same time , we should face the
masses of the people, popularize the knowledge of
rural energy science, improve the awareness of
energy conservation and environmental protection,
stop the farmers from cutting down and incineration.
Increase investment in rural energy development,
encourage business investors to invests in rural
energy, make energy intensive, concentrate energy
utilization, promote the development of the energy
industry, provide employment opportunities for
more rural young people, and solve the problem of
empty nesters. Problems such as getting rid of
poverty and getting rich in rural areas.
The government should issue relevant policies on
rural energy, promote the legalization of rural
energy use, and standardize the construction of all
kinds of energy sources.
We will promote the development of new energy
sources in rural areas. It is necessary to closely
integrate the distribution of energy resources in local
rural areas and the new demands and opportunities
of the farmers for energy use, make overall
planning, rationally distribute them, highlight the
key points, and coordinate and promote the
development of rural energy resources. It is
necessary to vigorously promote the ecological
recycling agriculture model linked by biogas,
vigorously support the specialized development of
rural biogas, and further increase the promotion of
clean and environmentally friendly energy products
such as solar cookers, solar waters heaters, solar
street lamps, etc. We should actively develop new
energy sources such as wind energy geothermal
energy and micro-water energy which are used in
rural production and life so as to promote the
development of new rural energy and improve the
quality of rural life.
6 CONCLUSIONS
To sum up, the current situation of rural energy
development is not optimistic, farmers’ awareness of
environmental protection is not strong, and problems
such as rural energy utilization still exist. We need
to develop the rural energy industry, develop new
energy sources, and reduce the damage to the
environment. Promoting the rational Development
of Rural Energy.
REFERENCES
1. Cong Hongbin ， Zhao Lixin ， Wang Jiuchen ， Ya o
Zonglu. Current situation and development demand
analysis of rural energy in China[J]. Transactions of the
Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering. 2017, (17),
224-231.
2. Zeng Guang, Wang Weiqi. On New Energy
Construction in New Countryside [J].
http://www.cnki.net/,kejifeng, 2016, (12), 1671-7341.