How to Read China's Electricity Market Forecasting Services: Who Is Allowed to Forecast (the CMA's Unified Public-Forecast System; Other Departments' Observatories Limited to In-System Specialised Forecasts), What a Station Must Forecast (Medium-Term 240 h Before 9:00, Ultra-Short-Term Every 15 Minutes; Southern Region 2025 Accuracy Floors of 40/60/65% for Wind and 45/65/70% for PV, Assessed per Percentage Point at Installed Capacity × 0.2 or × 1 Hour × a Provincial Coefficient, Capped at 10 or 5 Hours a Month), What the Market Discloses (Load, Tie-Line, New-Energy and Hydro Forecasts Before Declarations Open), the 2026 CMA–NEA Targets (87%/89% 24-Hour Power-Forecast Accuracy; a Trading Meteorological Service Platform Under Task 11) and the Vendor Layer (One Listed Vendor's 4,345 Stations and >95% Renewal Rate, by Its Own Account)

Short answer. 'Forecasting services' in China's power market are three different things, and the documents that govern them differ. First, public weather forecasting is a state function: the CMA's 2015 order makes forecast issuance a unified system run by the meteorological authorities' observatories, bars research bodies and individuals from publishing their own forecasts and limits other departments' observatories to specialised forecasts for in-system use. Second, power forecasting is a regulatory duty for wind and solar stations within the grid-connection rules' scope: the 2011 wind measures defined day-ahead and real-time forecasts at 15-minute resolution with error limits of 25%, 15% and 20% RMSE, the 2021 grid-connection provisions list the forecast system among grid-security equipment and have dispatch assess forecast deviation under regional rules, and the Southern region's issued 2025 rules spell out the assessment: a medium-term (240 h) forecast before 9:00 daily and an ultra-short-term forecast every 15 minutes, with accuracy floors of 40%/60%/65% for wind and 45%/65%/70% for PV, assessed per percentage point of shortfall at installed capacity × 0.2 or × 1 hour × a provincial coefficient and capped at 10 (wind) or 5 (PV) hours a month. Third, market-level forecasts are disclosed to market members: the 2024 disclosure rules require forecast information — system load, supply–demand balance, tie-line curves, total generation, non-market units, new energy by source type and hydro — to be published before trading declarations open. Around these sit the dispatch-side system standard GB/T 40607-2021, a January 2026 CMA–NEA opinion that sets 24-hour wind and PV power-forecast accuracy targets of 87% and 89% and plans an electricity-trading meteorological service platform, and a vendor market in which one listed forecaster says it served 4,345 stations at end-2024 with a renewal rate above 95%. This guide reads regulations, one region's issued rules, a standard record and one company's investor-relations record; it quotes no forecasting contract, price list or spot-market deviation settlement.

1. Who is allowed to forecast

CNWattHub reading: the order restricts public issuance of weather forecasts; it does not address a vendor supplying a power forecast to a specific station, which is what a Chinese 'forecasting service' sold to a wind or solar farm is — meteorological inputs turned into that station's active-power curve. The 2026 opinion does not change that split; it adds a joint CMA–NEA business layer on top of it.

2. What a station must forecast

2.1 The national texts

• 2011 wind measures (国能新能〔2011〕177号). Forecasting is the operator's analysis of active power from meteorological conditions and statistical rules, submitted to dispatch; two products — a day-ahead forecast (next day 0–24 h) and a real-time forecast (15 minutes to 4 hours ahead), both at 15-minute resolution; accuracy limits of a day-ahead maximum error not exceeding 25%, a real-time error not exceeding 15% and an all-day RMSE below 20%. Dispatch compiles the farm's plan from the submitted forecast on a priority-dispatch principle and in principle issues the plan according to the reported forecast, adjusting only under stated grid constraints; forecasts are assessed on accuracy, qualification rate and reporting rate, with a 75% per-step threshold in the attached indicators, and persistently poor forecasters must rectify.
• 2021 grid-connection provisions (国能发监管规〔2021〕60号). The new-energy forecasting system is listed among grid-security equipment whose planning, design, construction and operation must meet standards and grid-stability requirements; dispatch assesses forecast deviation under the local implementing rules; stations must report forecasts, single-unit files, meteorological data, installed and available capacity and theoretical and available power with accuracy and completeness meeting national and industry standards.

2.2 The Southern region's issued 2025 rules

The Southern Regulatory Bureau published its revised 'two rules' on 14 February 2025 as six attachments, including separate wind, PV, new-type storage and adjustable-load rules.

CNWattHub arithmetic (on the tagged figures): for a wind farm in the Southern region, one percentage point of day-ahead shortfall costs installed capacity × 0.2 × 2 = 0.4 hours of capacity-equivalent energy, while for a PV station it costs capacity × 1 × 0.2 = 0.2 hours — the PV rules carry a higher base multiplier (× 1) but a lower coefficient (0.2), so the per-point burden for day-ahead and ultra-short-term shortfalls is half the wind figure, and the PV monthly cap (5 h) is half the wind cap (10 h). The H1 cap applies to the forecast reporting-rate and accuracy assessment of one station in a month; it does not cover the separate assessment for a missing or non-compliant forecasting system, and it says nothing about a vendor's contractual liability, which is a matter for the service contract.

3. What the market discloses

The 2024 disclosure rules require forecast-type information to be disclosed before trading declarations open and operating information the day after the operating day — with the carve-outs that areas or periods without spot may disclose weekly and daily information as market operation needs, and that spot-market information is not disclosed for the time being during non-settlement trial operation; the market operator's public information includes the load-forecast method and process, and its forecast information covers system load, supply–demand balance, inter-provincial tie-line curves, total generation, non-market-unit output, new-energy output by source type and hydro (including pumped storage).

CNWattHub reading: a station's own forecast (Section 2) is an obligation to dispatch; the system-level forecast (this section) is a disclosure to market members. A commercial 'price forecast' service is a third layer that none of the texts cited here addresses — it is a private product built on disclosed data and private models, and nothing cited here licenses or assesses it.

4. The standard and the 2026 targets

• GB/T 40607-2021 sets technical requirements for dispatch-side wind or PV forecasting systems in data, software, hardware and performance indicators and applies to their development, construction, acceptance and operation (published 2021-10-11, effective 2022-05-01; text not read).
• The CMA–NEA opinion of 6 January 2026 (气发〔2026〕3号) targets by 2027 a seamless energy meteorological service system covering scenarios including electricity market trading; Task 3 sets a 24-hour 100 m wind-speed forecast RMSE below 15% of the daily maximum wind speed and a total-irradiance RMSE below 12% of the daily maximum in key regions; Task 4 targets 24-hour wind and PV power-forecast accuracies of 87% and 89%, a national–provincial integrated power-forecast platform and encourages supply and generation enterprises to participate as needed in applying self-developed forecast models; Task 11 (new service scenarios) includes an electricity-trading meteorological service platform and new-energy output and load forecast models.

CNWattHub reading: the 87%/89% targets are national programme goals for the public system, not assessment thresholds — the floors a station is actually assessed against are the regional ones (60%/65% day-ahead in the Southern region). A vendor that quotes '87%' as its accuracy should be asked which definition it uses, because the Southern rules define accuracy by their own formula per product and horizon and the opinion does not state a formula.

5. The vendor layer

In an investor-relations record dated 16 May 2025, 国能日新 (301162) said the number of new-energy stations it served reached 4,345 at end-2024 (a net increase of 755 in a year) and that its forecasting-service renewal rate stayed above 95%; it attributed faster growth in distributed-PV customers from 2025 to provincial '四可' (observable, measurable, adjustable, controllable) requirements under the January 2025 distributed-PV measures, with some provinces requiring forecasting for new commercial and industrial stations and implementation depending on each grid's rules.

CNWattHub reading: these are a company's own statements in an unaudited IR record, not market-share data; they are cited because they are the only first-party description of the service layer's scale found at source. The 2026 opinion's phrase encouraging supply and generation enterprises to participate 'as needed' in applying self-developed forecast models is the policy hook that leaves room for station-side models alongside the public platform.

6. A reading sequence built from the sources

1. Which forecast? Weather (observatory monopoly), station power (regulatory duty) or market-level (disclosure).
2. Which products and when? Medium-term 240 h before 9:00; ultra-short-term every 15 minutes; 15-minute resolution.
3. Which floors and formula? Regional rules, per product and horizon; Southern region 40/60/65 (wind), 45/65/70 (PV).
4. Which multiplier and cap? Capacity × 0.2 or × 1 × coefficient; H1 = 10 or 5 hours.
5. Which exclusions? PV: all three powers below 10% of capacity may be excluded.
6. Which standard? GB/T 40607-2021 for the dispatch-side system.
7. Which targets are policy, not assessment? 87%/89% in the 2026 opinion.
8. Whose figures? Vendor claims are company statements.

Scope limits

This guide reads the 2011 wind-forecast measures, the 2021 grid-connection provisions, the Southern region's issued 2025 wind and PV rules and notice page, the 2024 disclosure rules, CMA order 26 (2015), the CMA–NEA opinion of January 2026, the GB/T 40607-2021 record and one listed vendor's investor-relations record. Regional implementing rules other than the Southern region's issued 2025 texts are not cited. It quotes no spot-market forecast-deviation settlement rule, State Grid-area regional rule, forecasting contract or price, or audited vendor accounts. Not legal, trading or investment advice.