**Multiple Scenarios Forecast of Electric Power Substitution Potential in China: From Perspective of Green and Sustainable Development**

**Jing Wu 1,2,\*, Zhongfu Tan 1,2,3, Gejirifu De 1,2, Lei Pu 1,2, Keke Wang 1,2, Qingkun Tan <sup>4</sup> and Liwei Ju 1,2**


Received: 1 August 2019; Accepted: 27 August 2019; Published: 2 September 2019

**Abstract:** To achieve sustainable social development, the Chinese government conducts electric power substitution strategy as a green move. Traditional fuels such as coal and oil could be replaced by electric power to achieve fundamental transformation of energy consumption structure. In order to forecast and analyze the developing potential of electric power substitution, a forecasting model based on a correlation test, the cuckoo search optimization (CSO) algorithm and extreme learning machine (ELM) method is constructed. Besides, China's present situation of electric power substitution is analyzed as well and important influencing factors are selected and transmitted to the CSO-ELM model to carry out the fitting analysis. The results showed that the CSO-ELM model has great forecasting accuracy. Finally, combining with the cost, policy supports, subsidy mechanism and China's power consumption data in the past 21 years, four forecasting scenarios are designed and the forecasting results of 2019–2030 are calculated, respectively. Results under multiple scenarios may give suggestions for future sustainable development.

**Keywords:** electric power substitution; potential forecasting; CSO-ELM; green sustainable development
