Dynamic least-cost pathways for rural China’s energy transition away from solid fuels

Rural communities in China still rely widely on coal and biomass, creating health, climate and development burdens. Choosing low-cost alternatives is difficult because infrastructure, population and technology costs change over time. Here we develop a spatially explicit cost–benefit model for 248,000 rural settlements, 323.9 million residents and more than 14 million records on infrastructure, energy prices and population change. We compare piped natural gas, compressed natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas, grid electricity and distributed photovoltaic electricity from 2025 to 2060. Piped natural gas is the least-cost option for much of the rural population in 2025, but its advantage declines rapidly as rural depopulation weakens pipeline economies of scale and photovoltaic costs fall. By the early 2030 s, grid electricity followed by distributed photovoltaics becomes the lowest-cost sequence in many regions, while premature gas pipeline expansion raises lifetime system costs by 15–40%. Least-cost rural energy pathways shift from natural gas to photovoltaic electricity by the early 2030 s, with premature gas expansion raising lifetime costs by 15 to 40 percent, shown by simulating five transition options for 248000 Chinese settlements with 323.9 million residents from 2025 to 2060.