Solar photovoltaic and wind power stations on the Gobi desert in Lingwu City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, are intertwined with the snow, and green electricity is continuously transmitted. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, as an important transmission terminal of China's "West-to-East Power Transmission" strategy, has abundant coal, solar and wind energy resources. As of January 18, Ningxia's cumulative power transmission exceeded 700 billion kilowatt hours. Photo by Yuan Hongyan from China News Service.
In recent years, China's energy transition has been moving forward with "green", with clean energy power generation such as wind power, hydropower, nuclear power, and solar power generation continuing to grow, and the proportion of non-fossil energy consumption increasing. At the same time, the construction of the green power market has accelerated, the scale of green electricity trading has continued to expand, and the issuance of green certificates has also entered a new stage of "full coverage".
Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the National Energy Administration issued the "Notice on Strengthening the Convergence of Green Power Certificates and Energy Conservation and Carbon Reduction Policies to Vigorously Promote Non-fossil Energy Consumption" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"), clearly expanding the trading market and scope of green power certificates (hereinafter referred to as "green certificates"), and including the corresponding amount of electricity traded in green certificates into the "14th Five-Year Plan" provincial ** energy-saving target responsibility evaluation and assessment index accounting.
Some experts said that the new policy may ease the pressure on the completion of energy-saving indicators in some provinces, and is expected to increase the market demand for green certificates.
The trading volume of green electricity maintained a high growth momentum
As the installed capacity of clean energy continues to grow, renewable energy has become an important force to ensure electricity. According to the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2023, China's renewable energy will reach 14500 million kilowatts, accounting for more than 50% of the country's power generation capacity, exceeding the installed capacity of thermal power; China's renewable energy generation capacity during the year was 3 trillion kilowatt hours, accounting for about 1 3 of the total electricity consumption of the whole society, of which wind power and photovoltaic power generation accounted for more than 15% of the total electricity consumption of the whole society.
Nowadays, green power trading has promoted the establishment of direct links between renewable energy power generation enterprises and demand-side users through market-based means, and promoted the construction of a green power market.
In Sichuan Province, for example, in January this year, the province successfully completed its first intra-provincial green power transaction, with an estimated 5 billion kilowatt-hours of contracted electricity. The green power trading in Sichuan Province lasted from January 9 to January 22, attracting hundreds of enterprises to participate in the transaction, including 102 enterprises in Chengdu, with about 20 contracts for electricity800 million kWh, accounting for more than 40%.
A reporter from China City Daily noted that since the end of last year, various regions have successively announced the results of green electricity trading in 2024, which has achieved a significant increase compared with 2023.
Among them, the Tianjin Electric Power Trading Center reported in the middle of last month that its 2024 annual green electricity trading volume was 500.3 billion kWh, which is 273 times; In Xinjiang's 2024 medium and long-term market transactions, the amount of green electricity traded will reach 46.2 billion kWh, which is 19% of the transaction size in 202325 times; The trading volume of green electricity in Guangdong and Jiangsu reached 310.7 billion and 317.2 billion kWh, nearly double and 788%。
Zhang Nan, deputy director of the new energy trading department of the Beijing Electric Power Trading Center, said in an interview with a reporter from China City Daily: "Overall, the proportion of green electricity trading in the total amount of electricity traded in the market is still small. ”
According to data released by the China Electricity Council (CEC), the national green power provincial trading volume in 2023 will be 537700 million kilowatt hours, accounting for about 0 percent of the national market trading volume95%。
It is worth noting that green electricity trading is mainly within the province, and there are problems such as difficulty in cross-provincial and cross-regional transactions. It is understood that at present, the inter-provincial trading of green electricity is not directly open to users, and it is necessary for power grid companies to summarize and confirm the green power trading needs of users in the province, and then purchase green power products across regions and provinces.
Zhang Nan pointed out that the proposal of the "dual carbon" goal has promoted the continuous increase in the proportion of domestic new energy consumption, and the demand for green power market will undoubtedly continue to expand.
In fact, under the new power system, as new energy gradually becomes the main body of installed capacity and electricity, the value system of electricity commodities will also be subdivided, from the value of electric energy in the past to the value of electric energy in the future, while taking into account flexibility, reliability and green environmental value.
The purpose of building a green power market is to internalize the external attributes of the green value of new energy through market mechanisms, and at the same time promote the low-carbon transformation of energy and electricity production and consumption. Zhang Nan believes that green electricity trading is a transaction that combines securities and electricity, allowing users to not only consume green electricity, but also obtain corresponding green certificates; Green certificate trading is a transaction that separates securities and electricity, and only trading green certificates that represent the environmental rights and interests of green power is also regarded as the consumption of renewable energy.
The green certificate is an electronic "ID card" for renewable energy and green electricity, and is the only certificate for identifying the production and consumption of renewable energy. 1 green certificate unit is equal to 1,000 kWh of renewable electricity.
Since 2023, green electricity trading has grown by leaps and bounds. According to public information, in 2023, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region will complete annual green power transactions of more than 23 billion kWh, of which Beijing will purchase 16 green electricity5.7 billion kWh, a year-on-year increase of 26 times. In addition, green certificate trading has also progressed steadily. In 2023, the number of green certificate transactions in the North China Business Zone will be 20060,000, an increase of 72 year-on-year2 times, of which Beijing 4820,000 sheets, Tianjin 1710,000 sheets, Hebei 9580,000 sheets, 12 in northern Hebei60,000 sheets.
The "giants" of green electricity trading take the lead
In January this year, Merck KGaA, a multinational pharmaceutical company, signed a 10-year green power purchase agreement with China Resources Power Holdings***, which is Merck's first long-term green power procurement project in China, with a total of 300 gigawatt hours of green electricity purchased.
In the same month, CATL also announced its entry into the offshore wind power field, and its Ningde Deepwater Zone A offshore wind farm project was approved by the Fujian Provincial Development and Reform Commission, aiming to provide protection for its own green power**.
Industry insiders pointed out that promoting the participation of various market players in green electricity trading is the focus of the current market development. At present, the main enterprises involved in green power trading include the Internet, large state-owned enterprises and foreign-funded enterprises. Data centers, in particular, are actively buyers of the green electricity market and are figuratively called "steel mills that don't emit smoke" due to their huge energy consumption needs.
According to the "2023 Green Power Trading Ranking of Chinese Enterprises" released by BloombergNEF, Alibaba ranked 16The trading volume of 100 million kWh ranked first in the whole industry, and the second year was the first in the technology industry, and other companies such as Baosteel (Baoshan base), Luxshare Precision, BMW Group China, Tencent and other companies also occupied a prominent position in the list.
It is reported that "energy giants" such as Alibaba Cloud and Tencent Cloud have pledged to achieve 100% green electricity in their data centers by 2030.
Mao Hongju, director of the energy and carbon management team of Alibaba Cloud's intelligent IDC business unit, said in an interview with a reporter from China City Daily that the wide application of cloud computing services and the increasing demand of downstream customers to reduce carbon emissions are the main driving forces to promote the expansion of green power use in data centers. This is not only a manifestation of corporate social responsibility, but also the result of the capital market's high attention to ESG performance. Determining the actual interests of a company's listing, financing, valuation, etc., are closely related to the company's carbon emission performance.
According to Mao Hongju, Alibaba Cloud has significantly increased the proportion of clean energy used in self-built data centers since participating in the first market-oriented green power transaction in China in September 2021 through green power trading with parity new energy power stations. In fiscal year 2023, the proportion of clean electricity used by its self-built data centers to total electricity consumption increased from 21 in the previous fiscal year6% to 539%, achieved 11050,000 tons of carbon reduction.
New policies have unleashed the demand-side potential of green certificates
Since 2023, new measures have been introduced at the policy level to promote green energy consumption.
In July 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Finance, and the National Energy Administration issued the Notice on Promoting Renewable Energy Electricity Consumption with Full Coverage of Renewable Energy Green Power Certificates, proposing that green certificates are the only proof of the environmental attributes of renewable energy in China, and the only certificate for determining the production and consumption of renewable electricity; It will also expand the scope of green certificate issuance to hydropower, offshore wind power, distributed photovoltaic power generation, biomass power generation, etc.
This new phase is known as "Green Certificate 3."0 era", marking the beginning of the basic maturity and full operation of China's green certificate mechanism.
Zhang Nan said that the full coverage of green certificate issuance will solve the problem of limited green certificate issuance in the past and further promote the expansion of the green power market. This means that users can better grasp their own green consumption level through the green certificate tool. More importantly, the market-oriented consumption of distributed new energy will be promoted, providing more opportunities for distributed new energy to enter the market.
Not long ago, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Bureau of Statistics, and the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "Notice", which made it clear that in the "14th Five-Year Plan" provincial people's energy conservation target responsibility evaluation assessment, promote the inclusion of green certificate trading electricity into the energy conservation evaluation and assessment index accounting; The upper limit of the deduction of the electricity corresponding to the green certificate transaction in the accounting of the energy-saving target responsibility evaluation and assessment index is set; In principle, the amount of renewable energy consumption deducted by the provinces receiving from inter-provincial green certificate trading shall not exceed 50% of the energy conservation required to achieve the energy intensity reduction target of the 14th Five-Year Plan.
Experts believe that this policy will promote the provincial ** to encourage enterprises in the province to buy inter-provincial green certificates, and eventually these green certificates can be included in the province's energy-saving assessment assessment, the policy or will alleviate the pressure on the completion of energy-saving indicators in some provincial-level areas, and is expected to enhance the market demand for green certificates.
In particular, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) pointed out that the green certificate trading is based on the actual power generation of renewable energy, and will not directly affect the decline of energy intensity across the country.
At the same time, the Notice expands the trading scenarios of green certificates at the institutional level, and promotes the convergence of green certificates with the existing "dual control of energy consumption" policy, carbon emission statistics and accounting and other mechanisms, so as to further release the demand-side potential of green certificates.
At present, domestic users' green electricity consumption methods include medium and long-term green electricity trading, purchase of green certificates, etc. The scale of renewable energy in China's resource-rich "Three Norths" region (Northeast China, North China and Northwest China) is growing rapidly, but it is difficult to absorb it. However, enterprises in the eastern region with developed industry and commerce and export-oriented cannot buy green electricity due to problems such as inter-provincial transmission channels. The "Notice" intends to solve the above problems from the perspective of trading mechanisms and scenarios.
The notice mentions that a cross-provincial green certificate trading coordination mechanism and trading market will be established. Support the supply and demand provinces of green certificates to lock in the scale of inter-provincial green certificate transactions through agreements between the provinces in light of the actual situation, and assist business entities to carry out the docking of supply and demand of green certificates, centralized transactions, technical services, and the coordination and resolution of disputes.
It is important to note that grid transmission capacity must be considered as green electricity trading needs to be assisted by the grid. At present, inter-provincial UHV corridors give priority to the transmission of electricity in the inter-provincial framework agreement, and inter-provincial green power trading can only find channel idle periods, so there is great uncertainty in green power trading.
Zhao Xin, head of ESG at Luxshare Precision, said in an interview with a reporter from China City Daily: "Green electricity trading requires the group's factories to purchase separately through power sales companies in the province, which is relatively scattered. Green certificates, on the other hand, can be comprehensively counted and promoted at the group level, which is more flexible and has the advantage of scale. ”
At present, the main types of green certificate market in China include China Green Certificate (GEC), International Green Certificate (i-REC), and global renewable energy trading tool (APXTIGRS), among which GEC and I-REC are more commonly used.
Zhao Xin believes that with the continuous implementation of the policy, a large number of green certificates are expected to flood into the market, and the supply of green certificates in the market will be much greater than the demand for a period of time in the future, so it is important to expand the application scenarios of green certificates and promote the matching of supply and demand of green certificates.
Zhao Xin further pointed out that with the increase in both supply and demand in the green certificate market, the follow-up exit mechanism and full life cycle management measures also need to be continuously improved. The establishment and improvement of relevant mechanisms such as the verification and use of green certificates and the claim of green electricity rights and interests will provide important support for the long-term and healthy development of the green certificate market.
China City Daily reporter Sun Xuefei.