Development Trends of Natural Gas Resources and Gas‐Fired Power Generations in China

Natural gas is becoming an important fuel source for China, which is also expected to remain so in the future. In this article, chronological data of natural gas are summarized through the descriptive statistics methodology. The status quo and development trend of natural gas resources in China are analyzed as well, with the result showing that the productions and imports of natural gas are increasing rapidly. Meanwhile, China has formed a multigas source supply pattern, including domestic gas, imported liquefied natural gas, and pipeline gas. Then, the current situation and main problems of gas‐fired generation are analyzed. The finding shows that the economic competitiveness of the gas‐fired generation and the supply mode of natural gas are the main barriers in promoting the development of gas‐fired generation. Moreover, the technical analysis on three different types of gas‐fired power generation is provided. In China, combined cycle gas‐fired power stations and single cycle gas‐fired power stations are good choices for the 12th Five‐Year period, and the large‐scale natural gas distributed energy combined cooling, heat, and power is more applicable for the 13th Five‐Year period. Finally, three suggestions are proposed for guiding the rational use of natural gas resources and promoting the development of gas‐fired power generation in China. © 2015 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Environ Prog, 35: 853–858, 2016