To achieve sustainable social development, the Chinese government conducts electric power substitution strategy as a green move. Traditional fuels such as coal and oil could be replaced by electric power to achieve fundamental transformation of energy consumption structure. In order to forecast and analyze the developing potential of electric power substitution, a forecasting model based on a correlation test, the cuckoo search optimization (CSO) algorithm and extreme learning machine (ELM) method is constructed. Besides, China’s present situation of electric power substitution is analyzed as well and important influencing factors are selected and transmitted to the CSO-ELM model to carry out the fitting analysis. The results showed that the CSO-ELM model has great forecasting accuracy. Finally, combining with the cost, policy supports, subsidy mechanism and China’s power consumption data in the past 21 years, four forecasting scenarios are designed and the forecasting results of 2019–2030 are calculated, respectively. Results under multiple scenarios may give suggestions for future sustainable development.

Recently, various Chinese provinces have greatly reduced their coal consumption due to new environmental protection policies. Because of these policies, the orderly development of the clean energy heating mode has been effectively promoted. As the problem of air pollution in the northern part of China is particularly prominent, adopting clean heating in winter is an important solution to control air pollution for those regions. However, there is a tricky balance to be struck between the government and the heating companies when it comes to using clean heating during winter. Therefore, it is crucial for the government and heating enterprises to research new strategies. Consequently, this paper carries out a comprehensive study on the multiple factors influencing the game relationship between the government and heating enterprises, and tries to set up a more general model for the theoretical analysis of mechanisms of clean heating promotion, as well as their numerical simulation. The research results show: (1) The initial possibilities available to government and heating enterprises have a significant impact on the final strategy choice for the heating system; (2) due to advantages such as increases in social benefits, subsidies, fines, and clean heating profits, as well as the lessening of traditional heating costs, and regardless of the decrease in traditional heating profits, it is possible for the government to adopt the promotion strategy; and (3) there are more opportunities for heating companies to pursue in order to implement clean heating strategies. In conclusion, this paper proposes valuable suggestions for the government and heating companies concerning clean heating in China.