Air pollution represented by haze in China has attracted great global attention in recent years. China has recently introduced a series of action plans to improve air quality and prevent air pollution. Remediation on small coal-fired boilers and the development of heat and power cogeneration (HPC) and centralized heat supply (CHS) are important measures for preventing air pollution. This paper introduces the above mentioned policies, An industrial park in Guangdong Province, China, is taken as an example to analyze the contributions of HPC-based industrial CHS to energy saving and environmental protection. The benefits to the heat supplier and user are also analyzed. Furthermore, this paper presents the difficulties and challenges in developing industrial CHS, including mismatching in the early phase, price dispute, measure dispute, and negative inter-effects. The reasons for these problems are analyzed and possible solutions are provided. (C) 2016 Elsevier By. All rights reserved.