The provision of heat, the warmth of the people at one end, the improvement of the quality of life and the safe functioning of the city are important human projects, the construction of the energy system, and the development of ecological civilization. At present, our country is embarking on a new journey towards the full construction of a modern socialist state, with economic and social development placing higher expectations on the safety, cleanness, economy and comfort of the heat supply. The “fifty-five” plan outlines a strategic deployment plan to accelerate the full green transformation of economic and social development and build a beautiful china, with a clear intention to accelerate the green low-carbon transition of thermal systems, the use of excess and non-fossil energy for heating, and the orderly advancement of heat-measuring modifications and heat-to-heat charges, which will provide us with a way forward in deepening the development of heat-supply reforms in the new period. To that end, we should take a deep grip on the new tasks of the new situation, systematically design and carry forward reforms in the field of heating, accelerate the construction of a modern heating system that is green, low-carbon, secure, efficient, secure, intelligent and synergetic, and better meets the hot demands of the population for a better life, and devote all its efforts to the chinese modernization。
I. Accurate overall orientation for deeper heating reform
It's not too bad to be a man. The effects of heating are directly related to the warmth and social stability of the population. Priority must always be given to ensuring the warmth of the population, especially those in need, throughout the winter, promoting the implementation of primary responsibility for the supply of heat, improving the emergency mechanisms for the supply of heat, making every effort to ensure the safe and stable operation of the heating service, and increasing the level of parity, inclusion and ease of access to the heating service, so that the development results reach the entire population more and more equitably。
A clean, low-carbon, green transition. The supply of heat is an important area of energy consumption and carbon emissions. The concept of green development needs to be firmly adhered to and the development of heat supply integrated into the carbon and strategic landscape. It seeks to increase the share of clean energy, renewable energy and industrial residual heat in the heating industry, and to contribute actively to building a beautiful china by promoting carbon, pollution and greening in the heating sector。
Maintaining secure, resilient support. The safety of heating is an important part of the safety of urban operations. Strengthen bottom-line thinking and risk awareness, building on the country's energy resource endowment and heating practices, and building a multi-complementarity, supply-stable heat source security system. Continuously advance infrastructure development and upgrading, such as the heating pipeline network, enhance systems resilience to risk and emergency recovery, secure the heating safety floor and respond effectively to challenges such as extreme weather。
To be innovative and intelligent. Science, technology and innovation are central drivers of quality development for heat. It is important to keep pace with the new technological revolution and the trend towards industrial change and to promote the deeper integration of modern information technologies, such as connectivity, big data, artificial intelligence, and heating systems. The development and application of key technologies such as efficient energy conservation, clean heating, smart regulation, long-duration heat supply, the development of new quality of heat-supply productivity and the upgrading of the overall energy efficiency and intelligence of the heat-supply system in all its aspects are strongly promoted。
It's a government-led, market-regulated effort. Dealing with the relationship between government and the market is an important aspect of deepening heating reform. The current government-led heating industry needs to build on this to gradually explore market-based reform paths. The active role of markets in the allocation of resources and the role of governments in planning, policy support, standard setting, market regulation, bottom-up services, etc. Are needed. (c) deepening the reform of the heating system, improving the mechanisms for price formation, fostering diversified market owners and stimulating market dynamism and internal dynamics。
It's always systematic and tailored. The country is geographically vast, with wide variations in climatic conditions, resource endowments and development base. The concept of a “national one-size-fits-all” system should be used to strengthen top-level design and integrated planning. At the same time, attention should be paid to regional differences, scientific determination of technological pathways and development models, rather than “one-size-fits-all”, encouraging local exploration of clean and efficient heat supply pathways that suit their characteristics。
Fully recognizing the effectiveness of and challenges to the development of heating since the “1455”
Since the “1455”, under the strong leadership of the central party and the state council, the country has steadily developed its heating industry, and the winter clean-up efforts in the northern region have advanced and the rate of clean-up heating is rising. By the end of 2025, our northern region had a total heating area of 26 billion square metres, including 22. 1 billion square metres of clean heating and 85 per cent clean heating。
Key progress has been made in the clean and low-carbon transformation and energy consumption. The unprecedented level of clean heat promotion in the country, with a cumulative investment of $12. 9 billion from the central fiscal authorities, has led to more than $400 billion in local government and social investment, providing solid guarantees for the exploration and scaling up of technology routes. By the end of 2025, 88 cities in the country had been included in the central financial support for clean heating in the northern region during the winter, with a cumulative total of more than 41 million households treated with scattered coal, reducing coal consumption by more than 80 million tons. In january-november 2025, the total amount of raw coal used for heat consumption nationwide was 312 million tons, a slight increase of 0. 1 per cent over the same period; at the same time, the national electricity consumption rate continued to decrease to 304. 5 g/kwh, a decrease of 0. 2 g/g. Energy efficiency in the heating system is gradually improving and total coal consumption is effectively controlled。
Technology innovation applications are accelerating. Advanced technologies such as long-duration heat supply, heat pumps, heating storage, intelligent heating control platforms are being demonstrated and promoted. The level of manufacture of heating equipment has increased and some critical technical equipment has been autonomous. In hot and cold summer areas, the use of cleaner and efficient technologies, such as air sources, ground sources and water heat pumps, has gradually expanded, generating useful experience in exploring green, low-carbon heating pathways adapted to local conditions。
Institutional reform has been deepening. At the central level, departments such as the national development and reform commission are carrying out in-depth research on such topics as heating price formation mechanisms and intelligent heating. The programme of action for energy conservation and carbon reduction in 2024-2025, published by the state council, explicitly provides for the acceleration of heat-measuring modifications and the charging of heat by heat, and requires that, by the end of 2025, the loss of urban heating grids is approximately 2 percentage points lower than in 2020. At the local level, a number of pioneer areas have made breakthroughs in heat-measuring reforms, exploring paths and building experience for subsequent reforms. Some regions have evolved over time to build a “government-led, science- and technology-enabling, multi-dimensional co-governance, service upgrading” intelligent heating ecology with more than 95 per cent user satisfaction; others have adhered to precision management, digital empowerment, which has resulted in more than 70 per cent energy savings for users and an annual average heat order reduction of more than 30 per cent across the network; and some have introduced individualized heat models and energy-saving incentives to achieve basic coverage of district heating and 70 per cent reduction in the number of complaints. The above-mentioned practice shows that the heating reform has entered a new stage of fine-tuning and marketing. Through continuous and deepening reforms, people's sense of well-being, security and safety have been steadily increasing, and the multiple benefits of energy conservation, business efficiency and people's benefits have become more visible。
At the same time, it is important to be conscious that deeper heating reforms still face some of the challenges that need to be addressed on a sustainable basis: the development of heat supply in urban and rural areas has not been sufficiently balanced, with some rural areas and old sub-districts need to be upgraded; the costs of clean heat sources are relatively high and stability needs to be further enhanced; the flexibility of heat system regulation needs to be improved to accommodate volatile access to renewable energy and user-side flexibility; the demand for heat supply in hot and cold areas of the south has introduced new requirements for existing policies and technical standards; the heating price mechanism needs to be improved and the degree of marketization needs to be further improved; and the safety of some old piped networks cannot be ignored。
Iii. “fifty-five” proposals for the reform of the development of heating
“fifty-five”, which should be guided by issues and objectives, focus on key elements and take effective measures to help bring about higher-quality, more efficient, equitable, sustainable and safer development of energy supply。
Optimizing the layout of heating development. Increased efforts are being made to link national and regional heating planning with such planning as energy, urban and rural construction, and to promote a steady shift from dual energy consumption control to dual carbon emissions. In the northern region, cogeneration of heat and power has been steadily developing, expanding the use of industrial residual heat, nuclear energy residual heat, geothermal heat, etc., as appropriate, and building a long, multi-regional and complementary heating system. In the hot and cold southern summer and winter regions, the promotion of distributed clean energy heating and the construction of green low-carbon heating systems that suit the characteristics of the region are explored in accordance with the principles of local adaptation, classification, green low-carbon, and livelihood priorities, as called for in the one-city approach。
Accelerate the promotion of clean energy heat source substitution. Control of new coal-fired gas heating and orderly promotion of clean-up and flexible adaptation of active coal-fired natural gas heat sources. Actively expand the use of clean energy sources such as electricity and renewable energy for heating. Explore the development of geothermal energy for thermal heating, locally adapted biomass for cleaner heating, and encourage multi-energy complementary systems for solar heating combined with other energy sources. Enhance the recycling of low-grade heat sources such as industrial residual heat and data centre heat. Local resource endowments should be used in a disaggregated and multi-pronged manner, and efforts should be made to promote a steady increase in the share of clean and renewable energy in urban areas。
Accelerate the construction of intelligent heating systems. Actively promote the evolution of traditional heating systems to new heating systems that are synergized with “source site household storage”. Accelerate the digitalization and intellectualization of the heating system and promote the intelligent heat distribution control platform to achieve the smart perception and optimal regulation of heat sources, networks, heat exchange stations, users ' entire chain. The promotion of household metering and metering fees to stimulate the energy-saving potential of users, the promotion of the use of heat gauges and smart temperature control devices for users, the encouragement of heat-supply enterprises to work with science and technology enterprises, and the promotion of the integration of heat measurement and temperature control. Development of user-side flexible regulation and heat storage technologies to enhance systems ' passivity to renewable energy and overall energy efficiency. Establish regional large heating data centres based on digitalized technologies, integrate data on energy production, distribution and consumption, and provide decision support for low-carbon scenario design and energy optimization. (c) increasing research and development and industrialization of energy-efficient heating technologies and equipment。
Sound systems for heat safety and emergency management. Maintaining the safety base of the heating energy supply, strengthening the diversification of clean heat sources and improving the storage systems for coal and natural gas. Improved monitoring and maintenance of the operation of the heating network, timely screening and management of security hazards and upgrading of the network's essential safety. Establishment of a robust heat emergency management system covering the government, enterprises and users, improvement of the classification contingency plan, strengthening of emergency recovery capacity and material reserves to ensure safe and stable heating during extreme weather and emergencies. Exploiting elastic heating mechanisms that allow cold surges before and after statutory heating periods to advance or prolong heating and to settle in actual heat, highlighting the temperature of human security。
Deepening the mechanism for heating costs and price reform. Further clarification of government and market boundaries in the heating sector. Deepening the reform of heating enterprises and promoting the establishment of modern enterprise systems. Sound mechanisms for heating price formation and dynamic adjustment that reflect costs, stimulate savings, promote transformation, and steadily introduce measurement fees. Scientific adjustments to the structure of the two-fold heating price, the rational allocation of the basic heating price to the measurement of the heat price, the gradual exploration of the removal of the ceiling on the area covered by the heating bill in the areas where conditions exist, and the introduction of a two-way incentive mechanism for “more and less”, fully embodying the principle of equity of “more and less”. Establish robust mechanisms for linking heat and fuel prices to guarantee the sustainable operation of heating enterprises. Develop competitive heating markets and actively involve social capital in investment, construction and operation of clean heating projects. Improve standards and evaluation systems for the quality of heating services, strengthen controls and upgrade services。
Increased heat supply reform policy support and technology support. Full use of national policy opportunities to promote “large-scale equipment upgrades” to upgrade energy-intensive equipment in the heating sector. Improving financial, price, financial, land and other support policies for clean heating development. Integrating clean heating into the green low-carbon industry culture focus and building a complete chain of technology research and development - testing certification - standard setting - promotion. Assess the feasibility of including clean heating construction projects in the south in the scope of financial support and support the development of key technologies and demonstration projects. It is recommended that special orientation funds be established where conditions exist to adequately subsidize the application of energy-efficient technology products. Increased investment in science, technology and innovation in the field of heating, deployment of forward technology development, and breaking of bottlenecks in key materials and equipment. To strengthen standard-building, develop and revise standards for heating that cover the design, construction, operation and service process, and develop a differentiated system of standards adapted to the characteristics and needs of different regions. Emphasis is placed on the development and introduction of a highly qualified and specialized workforce. At the same time, advocacy has been intensified to promote knowledge of clean heating, promote green low-carbon heat and promote innovative mechanisms, such as energy-saving incentives, that stimulate energy conservation and carbon reduction within societies。
(director of the centre for price costs and certification of the national development and reform commission, luyon pu)
