China has become increasingly dependent on the international energy market owing to the rapid growth of demand for energy. To develop renewable energy and thus strengthen energy security for the future, it is important to consider the potential of crop residues. This paper contributes to this topic by mobilizing up-to-date statistical and remote-sensing data and by carrying out a geographic and economic analysis. Its assessment shows that China's total output of crop residues in 2010 amounted to 729 million tons, and the quantity could be used for commercial energy production is between 147 and 334 million tons, depending on the competition power of the commercial energy production relative to the traditional uses of crop residues. The analysis also shows that the distribution of crop residues in China is highly uneven. By taking into account the densities of crop residues available for energy production at the grid-cell level, the transportation cost constraints, and the economy-of-scale requirements of energy plants, this study further assesses the geographic distribution of the suitability for establishing crop residue based power plants and bioenergy plants in China. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.