Preview of the Two Sessions | Use the power of the market to support energy transformation

Building a unified national market is the only way to promote high-quality economic development. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "it is urgently necessary to accelerate the construction of an efficient, standardized, fair and fully open national unified market."

Building a national unified power market is a key task in building a national unified market and a major practice of the high-level socialist market economic system in the energy field. In recent years, the scale of my country's electricity market transactions has continued to expand, the construction of a multi-level electricity market system has been promoted in an orderly manner, the pattern of diversified competitive entities has been initially formed, the diversified value attributes of power commodities have been further revealed, and the construction of a national unified electricity market has moved from blueprint planning to substantial breakthroughs.

2025 is a key node for the tenth anniversary of the implementation of the new round of power system reform, and it is also the year for the construction of a unified power market in the country to move towards deep waters. How can the power industry solve the problem of energy transformation with a higher level of market-oriented mechanism? How to achieve the dual goals of optimized resource allocation and safe supply through a unified national market? During this year's National People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, these topics are expected to be continuously paid attention and become the focus of widespread discussion among representatives and deputies.

Breaking the ice and spreading the road

The construction of a unified power market is accelerating

2024 is a critical year for the development of my country's power market. With the official release of the "National Unified Power Market Development Plan Blue Book", a systematic layout has been formed for the first time, including a multi-level unified power market structure, a trading system with complete functions and complete varieties, a market mechanism that adapts to green and low-carbon transformation, a market mechanism that is safe, abundant and flexible in system, and a unified, open, fair and orderly market operation mechanism.

Data from the National Energy Administration shows that in 2024, the national market-oriented trading electricity volume exceeded 6 trillion kilowatt-hours, and its proportion of electricity consumption in the whole society climbed to 62.7%, an increase of 1.3 percentage points from 2023. Behind this heavy report card is the same resonance between policy innovation and market vitality.

——The system of rules in various aspects is constantly being improved. A unified market cannot be separated from a unified market rule. In recent years, the "1+N" basic rule system with the "Basic Rules for Operation of the Power Market" as the core, the "Basic Rules for Medium- and Long-term Electric Power Trading", the "Basic Rules for Registration of the Power Market", and the "Basic Rules for Auxiliary Services Market" as supporting policies has gradually taken root. This system provides strong institutional support for the standardized and orderly operation of the market.

——The multi-level market structure has basically been formed. The dividends of institutional innovation are revealed in the coordinated operation of multi-level markets. The national market and provincial and regional markets have been continuously optimized, and medium- and long-term transactions between provinces, regions and provinces are open regularly, with medium- and long-term trading accounting for more than 90% of the medium- and long-term trading electricity, becoming the "ballast stone" for stabilizing the "basic market" of electricity prices. The auxiliary service market has achieved full coverage, with an average annual mining system adjustment capacity exceeding 100 million kilowatts, and the clean energy consumption space is released exceeding 120 billion kilowatt-hours. The electricity spot market has covered more than 80% of the country's regions, and the inter-provincial spot markets and the spot markets in Shanxi, Guangdong, Shandong, Gansu and Mengxi have been officially put into operation.

——Diverable market entities have extensive participation. The explosion of market entities has become a vivid footnote to the results of reform. According to data from the National Energy Administration, the number of registered operating entities in the power market in the country has exceeded 740,000, an increase of more than 17 times from the 42,000 in the early stage of reform in 2016, and its scale is firmly ranked first in the world. Behind the "both quality and quality improvement" of market entities is the steady advancement of the construction of a unified power market system, and it is also a strong proof of the modernization of energy governance capabilities. It will inject lasting momentum into the construction of a new power system and serving the "dual carbon" strategy.

——The scale of green power transactions has grown rapidly. In 2024, the national wind power photovoltaic installed capacity reached 360 million kilowatts, with a total installed capacity exceeding 1.4 billion kilowatts, achieving the 2030 target six years ahead of schedule. Among them, market-oriented transactions are an important factor driving its rapid development. In the first three quarters of 2024, the national green electricity transaction volume reached 178.3 billion kilowatt-hours, an increase of 120.9% year-on-year. As of the end of 2024, my country's renewable energy green power certificates had a total of 553 million transactions, a year-on-year increase of 4.19 times. The dual empowerment effect of the "parity era" of new energy and the "market era" has gradually emerged.

Going toward new

Deepening reform opens a new chapter in market construction

The "National Unified Power Market Development Plan Blue Book" clarifies the "roadmap" for the development of the national unified power market for the first time, and proposes a "three-step" strategy, namely, initially completed in 2025, comprehensively completed in 2029, and perfectly improved in 2035.

Entering a critical year for initially building a unified national power market, the "Guiding Opinions on Energy Work in 2025" issued by the National Energy Administration has clarified the specific work of deepening the construction of a unified national power market, strengthen the coordination of national, regional/provincial multi-level markets, continuously improve the design of key mechanisms, further improve the "1+N" basic rule system of the power market, promote the continuous operation of the medium- and long-term power market, improve the auxiliary service market mechanism, and achieve basic full coverage of the provincial power spot market. Realize the trial operation of long-term settlement of the southern regional power market, further expand the trading scale of the Yangtze River Delta power market, and steadily promote the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei power market. Promote cross-provincial and cross-regional market-oriented transactions, promote standardization of provincial markets, and formulate guidelines for the construction of spot power markets.

As the proportion of new energy installed capacity exceeds 40%, the market mechanism needs to accelerate the transformation to adapting to high proportions of renewable energy. In recent years, Su Yuanyuan, a member of the National People's Congress and secretary of the Party Branch of the Measuring Center of the Qinzhou Power Supply Bureau of Guangxi, has continued to pay attention to and study the field of coordinated electric and hydrogen to help the construction of new power systems. She suggested that the mechanism for coordinated electric and hydrogen to participate in the power market should be improved, and the regulation value should be effectively transformed into economic value, and the coordinated market-oriented development of electric and hydrogen should be promoted.

The rule of law and standardization construction builds a solid market foundation. The promulgation of the "Energy Law of the People's Republic of China" provides a clear legal framework for the green transformation, market-oriented reform and legal management of the power industry, and the phenomenon of "focusing on construction and neglecting governance" is being reversed step by step. To anchor the goal of building a unified national power market, on the one hand, we must optimize the market structure to promote full competition, thereby reducing the possibility of enterprises manipulating prices or conspiring to price. On the other hand, we further improve the regulatory framework and market rules system to effectively maintain a fair competition environment in the market.

From "initial construction" to "comprehensive improvement", the construction of a unified power market in the country has reached a new starting point. This is not only a revolution in the allocation of energy resources, but also a profound practice of modernizing governance capabilities. It allows the "invisible hand" and the "visible hand" to work together, allowing "scenery, water" and "core, oil and gas" to show their strengths, allowing enterprises to shift from "passive acceptance" to "active choice", and transform green and low-carbon from concepts to market value of real money.