Shi Yubo: Vigorously develop the green electricity market and promote the realization of the "double carbon" goal
Today's world is facing severe energy challenges and environmental problems, and how to achieve the positive interaction between economic growth and environmental protection has become the focus of global attention. As a representative of clean and low-carbon energy, green power has always received great attention from all parties. As one of the core mechanisms of the green power market, green power trading directly connects renewable energy power generation enterprises with demand-side users through market-based trading methods, effectively promoting the expansion of renewable energy utilization and green development. Up to now, China has preliminarily built a green electricity trading market system and has achieved certain results.
On December 13, 2023, the National Energy Administration held a kick-off meeting for the issuance of green certificates in Beijing, and a number of power generation enterprises and green power users were awarded the first batch of green power certificates issued by the National Energy Administration, and it is expected that about 176 million green certificates will be issued in 2023, and the cumulative amount of green electricity traded will reach 61.1 billion kWh, which is 7.8 times and 10.5 times that of 2022, respectively. With the continuous increase in China's renewable energy installed capacity and power generation, China will become the world's largest green certificate supply market after achieving full coverage of green certificate issuance.
After years of efforts, China's green electricity trading market has made positive progress, however, we must also be soberly aware that China's green electricity trading still faces some key problems and challenges, and it is necessary for relevant government departments, market organizations, market trading entities and other aspects to work together to explore solutions.
The first is to improve the supply capacity of green electricity. Affected by the lack of coordination and rationalization of the old and new policies, as well as the pressure of the assessment of the weight of local renewable energy consumption responsibility, the enthusiasm of new energy to enter the market is not high, which limits the further expansion of green power trading. At the same time, there is a lack of mutual recognition and cohesion mechanism between China's green power and green certificate related systems and policies such as the renewable energy consumption guarantee mechanism, the "dual control" of energy consumption, and the carbon market, resulting in insufficient application scenarios of green power and green certificates, which affects the enthusiasm of enterprises to purchase. Therefore, it is necessary to further rationalize policies and improve mechanisms to increase the activity of green electricity trading.
The second is to promote the coordinated development of the "electricity-carbon" market system. At present, China has established mechanisms such as green electricity trading, green certificate trading and carbon market, which are interrelated and affect each other, but lack organic cohesion, and have not yet formed a green power consumption certification system with unified standards and information sharing. Therefore, there is an urgent need to strengthen policy coordination, unify emission factors, strengthen the coordination of green certification, and improve the organic connection between green electricity trading, green certificate trading and carbon market.
The third is to promote the international mutual recognition of China's green certificates. The international recognition of China's green certificate is directly related to the vital interests of a large number of export-oriented enterprises in China, and affects China's positioning and competitiveness in the future international supply chain and industrial chain. However, in terms of the environmental value assessment mechanism of renewable energy projects, the market maturity of the green certificate industry chain, and the supporting mechanism related to green certificates, the international market is not highly recognized by China, and it is still difficult to fully integrate with the international community. Therefore, it is urgent to improve the international recognition of China's green certificates, further improve the tracking system for the issuance of green certificates, strengthen the construction of supervision and punishment mechanisms for the whole process of green certificates, and actively participate in the research of international green certificate standards and the construction of the international mutual recognition system.
Fourth, improve the green electricity trading system. At present, China's green electricity trading market mechanism is still not sound enough, and it is necessary to further improve market rules and trading systems to improve the competitiveness and transparency of the market. In particular, it is necessary to improve the market-oriented mechanism and assessment mechanism of green electricity feed-in tariff, increase the channels for users to participate in green electricity trading, and implement the policy of subsidized new energy projects to participate in green electricity and green certificate trading. At the same time, we should give full play to the guiding role of administrative governance and market mechanisms in green power consumption, innovate the relationship between the environmental value of green electricity and the spot market price, and encourage distributed photovoltaic and subsidized projects to participate in electricity trading. Increase policy publicity, encourage more market players to participate, increase market vitality, expand market scale, and realize a wider flow and utilization of green electricity.
The author is chairman of the China Energy Research Society
