Individual homes use electric heaters. Many homes in northern China actually use hot water/air coil heaters at homes. But the electricity used to heat water and air and used to power home electric heaters got to come from some where. And I believe coal is still used extensively to generate electricity in China.
When I lived I China over 25 years ago, we had hot water coil heater installed at home. Every night, the coil became piping hot, heating up the rooms very well. So hot that we had to open windows to cool down the rooms. Even during day time, the coil was still warm because they can't stop sending hot water down the pipes. If they do, leftover water in the pipes would freeze in the pipes and breaking the pipes. So our houses were always so warm in the winter. Soon after I left China, my buddies told me that they changed the heating system to hot air coils. With only air in the pipes, they would stop sending hot air into pipes during daytime to save energy. Then your house become very cold in daytime. I was happy I didn't have to go through that.
Southern China is not as cold. So southern Chinese houses don't have any installed heating systems. That was intended to save energy. That also means houses in southern China could be as cold as outside, many times close to freezing. So southern Chinese can actually withstand cold better than northern Chinese.
Even when we moved to Texas, we usually keep our house very warm in winter. I used to set my heater to 80 deg F. When I got married, I was shocked when my wife who came from southern China wanted to set the heater to 70 deg F. I simply couldn't stand it when the house was so "cold". My wife told me that their house in China was a lot colder in winter.
