*1.2. Research Gap*

Currently, many studies have been conducted on various aspects of planning, modeling, operation, and evaluation of integrated energy system, local energy system, and community energy system by combining with the renewable energy. Meanwhile, some studies have focused more on household energy consumption in rural or urban areas of a particular Chinese province. These researches provide some feasible and significant technological guides for the future energy supply systems from the city-level, community-level, and household-level. However, due to the considerable difference in household energy consumption in each province of China, more research about the choice of household energy supply pathway is desirable and should be developed by simultaneously considering the energy resource distribution and social development characteristics in the context of carbon neutrality. That is, the synergy between household energy consumption and renewable energy distribution in different regions of China is crucial for the current development of distributed energy supply systems and the choice of household energy supply pathways under the carbon neutrality target.

#### *1.3. Resrarch Content and Novelty*

This contribution analyzes the energy consumption, power generation, carbon emission, and human development index of China near 40 years. It presents the average household electrical energy consumption of urban and rural residents in 28 provinces based on the data from the Chinese General Social Survey 2015 (CGSS-2015). Based on the above macro and micro statistical analysis, we analyze the characteristic of the distributed energy system and present the future energy system that should be the solar energy-based energy supply system. Moreover, two types of typical distributed energy supply systems are proposed by integrating high-efficiency energy conversion, storage, and exchange devices that are feasible pathways for the choice of household energy supply in China from a carbon neutral perspective. The following provides the novelty of the work,


### **2. Energy Consumption and Carbon Emission in China**

#### *2.1. Energy Generation and Consumption in China*

In China, thermal power (TP), hydropower (HP), nuclear power (NP), wind power (WP), and photovoltaic (PV) have been the primary generation. Figure 1 shows the variation in the installed capacity share of different power generation methods. The installed capacity of thermal power generation occupies the largest share and has decreased from 73.8% to 56.4% in the last 30 years. The total installed capacity of wind power and PV has increased rapidly in the last decade and has already surpassed the installed capacity of hydropower, reaching 43.2% of the total installed capacity of thermal power in 2020. Currently, coal-fired power generation is still the primary method of electricity production in China. However, last year, for the first time, the installed capacity of renewable energy surpassed that of coal-fired units. Besides, the continuous increase of installed capacity of wind power and PV will become an important step to achieving the carbon peak and carbon neutral strategy in the future.

**Figure 1.** The power generation installed capacity ratio (1990–2020) in China.

Changes in the structure of the installed power capacity of energy will cause changes in the production and consumption of electricity. Figure 2 presents the annual average power generation hours, including all-power generation ways as thermal power, wind power, hydropower, nuclear, and PV shown in Figure 1, and meanwhile shows the annual per capita power production from 1980 to 2020 in China. Figure 3 shows the power generation utilization hours of different power generation ways in China. The annual average power generation hours are a new concept proposed in this paper and equals the total power generation ratio to the total installed capacity. Although the installed capacity of power generation continuously increases, the power generation hours reached up to the maximum 4964.7 h in 2004 and the minimum 3463.6 h in 2020.

**Figure 2.** Annual average power generation hours and power production (1980–2020) in China.

**Figure 3.** Power generation utilization hours of different power generation ways in China (2008–2020).

On the one hand, the wind power and PV generation installation ratios increase with lower generation hours due to their essential characteristics. On the other hand, the ratio of thermal power generation and the generating equipment availability hour decrease. On the other hand, since 2010, the average annual number of hours of electricity generated has decreased to 91 h per year. The thermal plant has the same trend shown in Figure 3. Especially in 2020, the annual average power generation hours will reduce 180.8 h due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, the annual per capita power production has continued to grow, increasing nearly 18-fold in 40 years. In particular, it has increased from 3153 kW to 5397 kW in the last decade, almost 71.2%.

#### *2.2. Carbon Emission and Human Development Index*

In the past four decades, the rapid development of energy and electricity in China has dramatically improved people's social quality of life, bringing about serious environmental problems. Meanwhile, HDI is an indicator of economic and social development and is a comprehensive evaluation containing the financial standard, education measure, and life expectation [38]. Therefore, Figure 4a presents the annual per capita carbon emission of China from 1980 to 2020 and the human development index (HDI) of China from 1990 to 2020 and their relationship. Over the past four decades, the annual per capita carbon emissions have increased from 1.467 tons to 7.008 tons, an average increase of 0.138 t per year. Besides, the HDI increases from 0.499 to 0.761 from 1990 to 2020 in China. Figure 4b also shows that the HDI is positively correlated with carbon emissions per capita. In other words, to a certain extent, the increase in carbon emissions per capita contributes to the improvement of HDI.

**Figure 4.** (**a**) Annual per capita carbon emission and HDI of China, (**b**) HDI varies with the annual per capita carbon emission.

#### **3. Household Electricity Consumption Distribution**

*3.1. Household Electricity Consumption in Urban and Rural Areas*

The above analysis provides a macroscopic view of China's energy production and social development from different data such as installed capacity, per capita electricity generation, per capita carbon emissions and human development index. Besides, from the microscopic view, household electricity consumption also greatly influences the total energy consumption in China, in particular, electric power consumption. This article analyzes the corresponding electricity power consumption data based on the 2015 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS-2015). Figure 5 presents the average household electricity consumption of urban and rural residents in 28 provinces of China, respectively. We can find that the urban electricity consumption is almost more than the rural electricity consumption. According to the statistical data, the average annual electricity consumption per household of urban residents in Fujian Province is the highest. The average annual electricity consumption per household of urban residents in Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, and Sichuan is the lowest in addition to the national position. Geographically, it can be seen that the average annual electricity consumption per household of urban residents in the northern region is slightly lower than that in the south, and the trend of electricity consumption increases gradually from the northwest to the southeast. In addition, the average annual electricity consumption per household of urban residents has a regional concentration distribution pattern, with high electricity consumption areas concentrated in the capital, east China, south China, and southeast coastal areas, which is closely related

to the high level of political and economic development in these areas. Meanwhile, considering that the overall development level of the central and northern regions still has more room for improvement, the lower overall electricity consumption in this region also supports this status quo.

**Figure 5.** The average annual electricity consumption per household in urban and rural residents in 28 provinces of China, 2014.

Moreover, Figure 6 presents the average household electricity consumption of urban residents in 28 provinces of China, 2014. For urban residents, the average annual electricity consumption per household in Fujian Province, Guangdong Province, and Anhui Province resides in the top three statistical provinces in order. The average annual electricity consumption per household is concentrated in the range of 1500–2000 kWh in more provinces, with 12, which better reflects the average level of urban residents nationwide. For the electricity consumption of rural residents, there are missing data for Guangdong Province, Tianjin, and Shanghai. The average annual electricity consumption per household in Zhejiang, Fujian, and Jiangsu provinces is in the top three statistical provinces in order of residence. Comparing the average annual electricity consumption per household in different regions, we can see that the overall electricity consumption of urban residents is higher than that of rural residents. The average annual electricity consumption per household of urban residents in Shandong Province, Guizhou Province, Hunan Province, and Chongqing City is already about twice that of rural residents, indicating a large imbalance between urban and rural development in the regions as mentioned above. In comparison, the average annual electricity consumption per household of rural residents in Zhejiang Province, Ningxia Province, Hubei Province, and Shaanxi Province is higher than rural residents. The average annual electricity consumption per household in Zhejiang Province, Ningxia Province, Hubei Province, and Shaanxi Province is higher than that of urban residents, which indicates to a certain extent that the development level of local villages and cities is more average and the electricity consumption is comparable. In particular, the average annual electricity consumption per household in Zhejiang Province is more than twice that of urban residents, which laterally indicates that the development level of local rural areas is higher.

**Figure 6.** The average household electricity consumption of urban residents in 28 provinces of China, 2014.
