Regional differentiation of biogas industrial development in China

The regional distribution of household biogas and large & medium-scale farm biogas project was analyzed by the index of popularization rate. The results showed that Chinese household biogas has an obvious geographical difference in popularization rate, and can be divided into five zones: high popularity in Southwest areas, steady development in Central areas, rapid growth in Western areas, and low popularity in Northeast and Eastern coastal areas. The emphasis of household biogas development was shifted from east to west, which was mainly caused by combined effects of climatic conditions and economic level. The popularization rate of large & medium-scale biogas project in livestock farms was low, but developed rapidly with average annual increasing rate of 13.94%. And great differentiation existed in popularization rate and growth trends, of which 98.63% of running biogas project and 94.5% of digester capacity were located in southern areas to demarcation line constituted by boundaries of Liaoning, Hebei, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan. Two-way growth in amount and growth trend was shown in southeast coast and southwest regions, while unidirectional growth of amount in inland areas.