State Grid Trades Nearly 7 Billion KWh in Its First Green Power Trade

State Grid Corporation of China (State Grid) traded nearly 6.9 billion kilowatt-hours of clean power on China's national carbon trading market on Sept 7, the first day of its opening. It was also the first clean power trade for the State Grid.

A total of 259 market entities from 17 provincial regions participated in the event.

State Grid has actively supported the work of the Beijing Power Exchange Center and contributed to the development of green power trading in China by innovating its trade mode, optimizing grid scheduling and using advanced technologies like blockchain to promote connections between suppliers and consumers.

The Baofeng photovoltaic solar power plant in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Deepening mechanism innovation

Green power trading is a major mechanism innovation to improve China's power market system, realize the effective docking of green power supply and demand, create a decisive role for the market allocation of resources and promote energy transformation and new power system construction.

The trading is expected to form a long-term market incentive and push forward China's green and low-carbon energy transition.

In order to make it easier for market entities to participate in green power trading, State Grid developed a unified service platform for the e-trade power market and launched a special green power trading zone.

The platform involves all kinds of market entities in the fields of power grids, power generation, power users and retailers, as well as provides various types of green power trading.

Through the platform, users can complete registration, information retrieval, settlement result queries and green power consumption certification by logging on to the platform's website.

Before the green power trading platform was set up, the State Grid surveyed policies related to clean energy market trading and domestic and international clean energy market-based trading mechanisms in East China's Jiangsu Province.

It also completed several green power demand surveys according to different types of market entities and their actual situations.

At the same time, seminars for users were held to ascertain their needs for green power trading and training, and system testing was carried out for those in need of green power trading.

Carbon inspectors at State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Research Institute give briefs on the green power index in Shanghai. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Explore green energy development

In recent years, more enterprises in both China and foreign countries and regions have strived to make a clean and low-carbon energy transition, leading to an increasing need for the purchase and consumption of green power.

An action plan for green power trading pilots was recently released that builds a green power trading mechanism and explains the commodity and environmental value of green power.

Users can purchase green power from new energy enterprises, which not only meets the demand for production energy, but also protects traceable green environmental value rights and interests.

Wang Wei, chairman of the Shanghai Power Exchange Center, said that under the green power trading market mechanism, participating enterprises will be able to use green power starting in 2022, which will help them obtain official certification and drive the low-carbon transformation of related industrial chains.

Enterprise representatives involved in the Sept 7 trading said green power trading is a key for manufacturing enterprises to develop overseas markets and improve their international competitiveness. It is also a platform for enterprises in the information and service industries to fulfill their social responsibilities and participate in energy transformation.

Zhang Kaipeng, senior vice president of Schneider Electric Global Supply Chain China, said five Schneider plants in Shanghai purchased enough green power in the Sept 7 trading. The company plans to realize full green power coverage in more than 30 plants in China and promote green power trading in more regions.

Employees at the State Grid in Zhejiang Province, monitor green power trading and analyze new energy supplies. [Photo/sasac.gov.cn]

Statistics show that the power trading volume on Sept 7 was equivalent to that of burning 2.44 million metric tons of standard coal, or a reduction of 6.07 million tons of carbon dioxide.

State Grid Chairman Xin Baoan said the company will make full use of the platform to optimize energy and resource allocation, scientifically arrange operation, prioritize the green power trading plan and promote highly-efficient green power trading under the guidance of the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration.

(Executive editor: Niu Yilin)