Five government departments have jointly issued a document to promote the high-quality development of green electricity, highlighting the collaborative opportunities in electricity consumption. Recently, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, and the National Data Bureau released the “Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of the Renewable Energy Green Power Certificate Market.” This document sets clear phased development goals for the green certificate market for the first time. The approach encompasses five key areas: “ensuring supply, promoting demand, improving mechanisms, expanding applications, and going global,” aimed at fully stimulating the demand for green electricity consumption.
Analysts believe that the release of the “Opinions” is expected to facilitate the realization of environmental benefits from green electricity and that investment opportunities in areas like electricity consumption collaboration are worth noting. According to the document, by 2027, the trading system of the green certificate market will be essentially perfected. There will be a more robust mechanism for green electricity consumption that combines mandatory and voluntary consumption. Furthermore, the systems for accounting, certification, and labeling of green electricity consumption will be fundamentally established, and the connection between green certificates and other mechanisms will be smoother. This will accelerate the release of the market’s potential and steadily advance the international application of green certificates, ensuring their smooth circulation nationwide.
By 2030, the institutional framework of the green certificate market will be further improved. There will be a significant increase in the demand for self-consumed green electricity across society, with the market operating efficiently and orderly. The international application of green certificates will be effectively realized, and the environmental value of green electricity will be reasonably reflected, strongly supporting the high-quality development of renewable energy and aiding the comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development.
Notably, the “Opinions” also mention that the green electricity consumption ratio for newly built data centers at national hub nodes should be further increased from the current 80%. A number of green electricity factories and parks that consume a high proportion of green electricity will be developed in a categorized manner, encouraging them to achieve 100% green electricity consumption. CICC believes that the policy is aligned with the goal of achieving carbon peak by 2030 and the establishment of a unified national electricity market system. It aims to guide the environmental value attribute of green electricity to be realized through market mechanisms, thereby helping to improve the green low-carbon development mechanism.
Additionally, the policy will gradually allocate consumption responsibilities to the demand side, thereby further solidifying the responsibilities of relevant parties. This is expected to enhance the trading activity in the green electricity certificate market, guiding the value of green electricity back to a reasonable level and increasing the green returns of projects. There is an anticipation that the activity level in the green certificate market will increase, helping to realize the environmental benefits of green electricity.
Changjiang Securities suggests focusing on investment opportunities related to electricity consumption collaboration, particularly emphasizing the flexibility of data centers with energy storage. Recently, there has been a clear trend of pairing data centers with green electricity and energy storage, as seen in various domestic and international data center + energy storage projects, including those in Abu Dhabi, Australia, and Qingyang’s “East Data West Computing” initiative. Given the high electricity consumption and quality requirements of data centers, this sector is likely to become a significant and high-quality sub-market for energy storage.
From an international perspective, the core drivers for the pairing of solar energy storage include economic viability, emission reductions, and deferred investments in the grid. Markets that have successfully implemented such solutions, like those in the Middle East, North America, and Australia, share the commonality of unstable grid power supply, short construction cycles for solar energy storage, and initial economic feasibility. Additionally, major global companies like Google and Microsoft have set a target of matching 100% of their electricity consumption with renewable energy by 2030, actively pursuing “renewable energy + energy storage” solutions.
In the domestic context, during the national hub phase of the “East Data West Computing” initiative, a substantial demand for paired energy storage is expected to arise. The National Data Bureau has indicated that the green electricity ratio for newly constructed data centers at hubs should exceed 80%. Projects in Gansu and Inner Mongolia are already emerging, such as the Tongli Risheng Qingyang project, which is expected to reduce energy consumption at data centers and increase green electricity absorption. Looking ahead, as the marketization of electricity in the western regions improves and commercial models become viable, there is potential for the realization of “source-grid-load-storage” solutions.
