"During the day, we don't dare to turn it on; at night, we only burn it for a short while." Recently, multiple netizens with IP addresses located in Hebei have posted videos on the Douyin platform, stating that winter heating has once again become a problem. Coinciding with the Minor Cold solar term on January 5th, the coldest time of the year, the heating difficulties in Hebei's rural areas have resurfaced as a focus of public attention. That same day, the "Farmer's Daily" published a commentary titled "The Heating Problem in Hebei's Villages Cannot Be Delayed Any Longer," while the day before, Xinhua News Agency published "Xinhua Commentary | Rural Heating Must Calculate the 'Environmental Account' While Firmly Holding the 'Warmth Line'." The joint focus on this issue by these two major media outlets sparked a heated online response, with numerous media platforms reposting the content, and related topics trending on the local hot search lists for several cities in Hebei on Weibo.
A Douyin content creator with an IP address in Baoding City, Hebei, @田园喵汪, posted a video claiming that most households in his village do not use natural gas. He stated that even with the wall-mounted boiler set to over 60 degrees Celsius, the indoor temperature does not exceed 13 degrees, while the local natural gas price is 3.16 yuan per cubic meter. A review of relevant reports reveals that the difficulty of winter heating for farmers in Hebei has repeatedly drawn attention from various quarters in recent years. In a report dated January 16, 2023, the "China Energy News" cited expert recommendations urging that "livelihood protection should be prioritized regardless, ensuring that residents' gas usage is not problematic." However, this issue has clearly not been effectively resolved to date and has been reported by media as "almost a yearly problem."
At the end of the aforementioned commentary article, the Farmer's Daily posed the question: When will the heating problem for the elderly in Hebei's rural areas be solved?
On April 26, 2022, in a response to Proposal No. 241 from the Fifth Session of the Twelfth Hebei Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated that since 2017, Hebei has comprehensively promoted clean heating renovations in rural areas. By the end of 2021, a cumulative total of 12.965 million households had completed clean heating renovations, achieving "complete renovation where applicable" in rural areas. A January 16, 2023, report from the "China Energy News" stated that the original intention of Hebei's "coal-to-gas" conversion was to advance energy transformation while balancing the need for warm winters for the masses with air quality improvement.
Douyin creator @田园喵汪 stated in his video that he recently visited multiple households in a Baoding village, where most families do not use natural gas, and the local price is 3.15 yuan per cubic meter. However, according to a January 13, 2025, report by People's Daily Online's Hebei channel, during the 2025 Hebei Provincial Two Sessions, Yang Huisu, a deputy to the Hebei Provincial People's Congress, stated that in recent years, Hebei's rural areas have primarily adopted clean energy heating methods like coal-to-gas and electric heating, but the costs of these methods are relatively high, increasing the living burden on residents. "Taking coal-to-gas heating as an example, for a family with three rooms totaling 100 square meters, ensuring an indoor temperature of around 18 degrees Celsius requires burning 20-30 cubic meters of natural gas daily." Calculating based on the first-tier price of 3.15 yuan per cubic meter, "a family would need to pay 63-94.5 yuan per day for natural gas. The monthly heating cost would be approximately 1890-2835 yuan, and the cost for one winter would be about 7560-11340 yuan," Yang Huisu said.
The Farmer's Daily commentary also noted that currently, the price of natural gas in Hebei's rural areas is stable at 3.15-3.4 yuan per cubic meter. For a 100-square-meter house, the heating cost for one winter ranges from about 5,000 to 10,000 yuan. To be warmer, one must spend more money; if reluctant to spend, one must endure the cold. The gas subsidy has decreased from the initial 1 yuan per cubic meter during construction to 0.8 yuan, and now to 0.2 yuan. Even if families only turn on the heating when they can no longer bear the cold, the winter heating cost for a rural household in Hebei still amounts to several thousand yuan. Given that a farmer's annual income is only around ten or twenty thousand yuan, heating costs consume a significant portion, making it truly unaffordable and impractical.
In contrast, the "Beijing Residential Pipeline Natural Gas Sales Price List" published on the website of the Beijing Municipal Development and Reform Commission on November 15, 2025, shows that the first-tier price for local residential gas is 2.61 yuan per cubic meter. The first-tier usage quota for wall-hung boiler heating is 0-1500 (inclusive) cubic meters, and for rural coal-to-gas heating, it is 0-2500 (inclusive) cubic meters.
Public reports indicate that during the initial push for "coal-to-gas" conversion in Hebei, gas subsidies were an important means of buffering high gas prices and making it affordable for farmers. To ensure villagers could afford to use gas after the conversion, Hebei also made active efforts. The aforementioned April 2022 response from the Hebei Provincial Development and Reform Commission stated that, based on the clean heating financial subsidy policy introduced in 2017, adjustments were made according to actual conditions, gradually clarifying support policies for emerging heating methods like graphene, centralized heating coverage, and solar thermal/photovoltaic+. The provincial clean heating financial subsidy policy introduced in 2017, besides providing subsidies for equipment purchase and pipeline network renovation, clearly included a three-year operational subsidy support policy. In 2019, with provincial government approval, it was specified that cities and counties should formulate specific operational subsidy methods based on local conditions, with the provincial government providing an additional two years of subsidies on top of the three-year operational subsidy. In 2021, with provincial government approval, the provincial government further increased support for clean heating, extending the provincial operational subsidy from 5 years to 9 years, to ensure the long-term operation and sustainable development of clean heating.
According to a November 3, 2023, report by the People's Daily app's Hebei channel, since October of that year, governments at all levels in Hebei had successively signed winter supply guarantee agreements with over 100 gas companies involved in the coal-to-gas conversion, clarifying responsibility-sharing mechanisms to ensure stable gas supply for residential heating. By October 31 of that year, some gas companies involved in coal-to-gas conversion in parts of Hengshui, Handan, Zhangjiakou, Xingtai, Langfang, Baoding, and Qinhuangdao in Hebei had successively received subsidy funds from governments at various levels.
Where does the crux of the problem lie for the winter heating difficulties in Hebei's rural areas following the "coal-to-gas" conversion, an issue that has attracted public attention for years? At the 29th World Gas Conference held in May 2025, several energy sector professionals publicly discussed the practical operational challenges of the "coal-to-gas" conversion in North China. According to a May 24, 2025, report by Yicai, during the period of surging global natural gas prices from 2021 to 2023, risks associated with city gas enterprises' coal-to-gas projects erupted, leading to winter gas supply cuts and purchase restrictions in Hebei, Shandong, and other places. At the 29th World Gas Conference, Fu Chengyu, former chairman of China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), stated: "China has gained good experience, but also some lessons, in promoting 'coal-to-gas'. The government has greatly promoted this process in recent years, for instance, by restricting coal burning within some city limits. But in this process, we found that domestically, there is a lack of sufficient natural gas supply. Therefore, for some countries, promoting 'coal-to-gas' first requires having a guaranteed natural gas supply. Governments must also base their policies on their national conditions, especially considering economic affordability as a necessary factor."
The report stated that the massive renovation project required large-scale investment. In terms of government investment, taking Tianjin's Jinghai District as an example, the local government had to allocate approximately 10,000 yuan per household for infrastructure renovation costs like pipeline networks and wall-hung boilers, plus provide a gas subsidy of over 1 yuan per cubic meter.
A January 16, 2023, report by the "China Energy News," titled "Frequent Supply Interruptions Plague Hebei's 'Coal-to-Gas' Conversion," stated that at the time, villages in many areas including Langfang, Baoding, Handan, and Xingtai were experiencing supply interruptions to varying degrees, affecting residential heating. Since mid-November 2022, users had continuously reported similar heating issues on the "Leadership Messages" section of the People's Daily website, with "gas cut-off" and "supply suspension" being key keywords. Long-term tracking of Hebei's "coal-to-gas" project by "China Energy News" reporters found that since the large-scale conversion was promoted starting in 2017, these projects, which were supposed to benefit the people, had repeatedly sparked controversy, with problems such as insufficient natural gas supply, numerous safety hazards in heating equipment, and unaffordable costs for users being exposed one after another.
"Adding insult to injury is the significant reduction in subsidies." A January 3, 2026, report by Da Xiang News stated that according to the Hebei Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment's "Winter Clean Heating Project Implementation Plan," the initial standard for gas subsidies during the heating period for Hebei's "coal-to-gas" conversion was 1 yuan per cubic meter. Now, most regions have gradually reduced the subsidies according to policy.
How can the path of clean heating lead to warmth? "Winter heating is directly related to people's livelihoods; regardless, livelihood protection should be prioritized to ensure residents' gas usage is not problematic." The aforementioned January 16, 2023, report by "China Energy News" cited the views of Guo Jiaofeng, a researcher at the Development Research Center of the State Council's Institute of Resources and Environmental Policy, who stated that corporate behavior must never affect livelihood protection. "It requires a consultation mechanism involving relevant competent authorities and upstream/downstream enterprises to clarify divisions of responsibility, formulate regulatory measures, and introduce clearer, more feasible price implementation policies for 'coal-to-gas'. Especially provincial and municipal development and reform departments need to strengthen the implementation of their primary responsibility for signing 'guaranteed volume and price' contracts and effectively rationalize the gas price issue."
However, three years later, by January 5, 2026, the problem of heating difficulties in Hebei's rural areas had once again become a focus of public attention. "Hebei's 'coal-to-gas' conversion almost has problems every year and is highly controversial." In the 2023 article "Frequent Supply Interruptions Plague Hebei's 'Coal-to-Gas' Conversion," relevant personnel from the National Clean Heating Expert Group emphasized that completing the renovation task is only the first step; follow-up work including operation, maintenance, and guarantees is necessary. The goal should be not only to pursue cleanliness but also to ensure that ordinary people can use it, use it well, use it safely, and find it affordable and sustainable.
In response to the situation where "the heating costs after the 'coal-to-gas' conversion in some rural areas of North China have recently made farmers hesitant," a January 4, 2025, commentary by Xinhua News Agency stated that rural heating must calculate the "environmental account" while also holding the "warmth line." "The ultimate measure of policy effectiveness is always the tangible sense of gain among the people. The path of clean heating must lead to blue skies, but it must also arrive at warmth. Only by bridging the 'temperature gap' between policy and people's livelihoods, allowing the warmth of the policy to accurately cover every household, especially those with limited incomes and older houses, can this important livelihood project truly withstand the test of public sentiment and warm every cold winter."
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