The study investigated rural residents’ knowledge of and attitudes toward forestry biomass energy by questionnaires and interviews, and took solid biomass fuel as an example, so as to explore barriers for rural residents to use this kind of renewable energy. To our knowledge, this is the first research to merge pro-environment attitudes theory with work on forestry biomass energy in China, and it will contribute to the development of forestry biomass energy industry. The results of descriptive statistics revealed that rural residents merely had primary knowledge of forestry biomass energy due to lack of opportunities to learn such knowledge, but their attitudes was positive as a whole, despite of uncertain purchase attitude. According to further investigation, two most important aspects to use of household energy were convenience and habit, and economic consideration also exerted important influence on purchase decision. In order to promote the application of forestry biomass energy among rural residents, the following intervention measures were put forward. The government should provide financial support for customers and enterprises, and strengthen dissemination of environment knowledge; marketers need to devise marketing mixes that convince rural residents that using solid biomass fuel is really easy and beneficial to self and society; enterprises also could adopt integration strategies to provide convenience, thrift, and feeling of familiar.