How to Read China's Green Power Trading: How the Pilot Started, How a Green-Power Contract Is Priced and Settled, What the 2025 Rules Require, How Big the Market Is, and How Direct Connection Differs

Short answer. Green power trading (绿电交易) is a medium- and long-term electricity trade in which a renewable generator and a user are paired one-to-one and the environmental value of the electricity travels with it as a green certificate, so that the user can show where its green power came from. The price has two parts, an energy price and a certificate (environmental value) price, and the two are settled separately. In 2025 the NEA counted 328.5 TWh of green power trading, up 38.3% on 2024 and 18 times the 2022 volume, with 60 TWh under multi-year green PPAs. This guide reads the national texts that govern the trade; provincial rules and prices are outside its scope.

1. Where the trade came from

In September 2021 the NDRC and NEA replied formally to a Green Power Trading Pilot Work Scheme, agreeing that State Grid and China Southern Grid run the pilots. The scheme, as described in the NDRC-published interpretation, created dedicated green-power trading sessions and issued green certificates to the new-energy generators that took part, so that certificate and electricity circulate together. The interpretation (written by an author from 电力规划设计总院) says the pilot gave priority to zero-emission wind and PV, had dispatch institutions arrange green-power contract volumes with priority so results were executed first, and settled green power trading ahead of other priority generation plans and market trades. Certificates were to be issued by the National Renewable Energy Information Management Centre under the national energy authority, transferred to the power exchange and allocated to users according to trading results; the scheme also called for studying a CCER-type link to the carbon market so users would not pay twice for the same environmental attribute. The pilot scheme itself was approved by letter; this guide cites only the published interpretation of it.

2. What a green-power contract must contain

The 2025 Basic Rules for the Medium- and Long-Term Electricity Market (发改能源规〔2025〕1656号, issued 17 December 2025) now carry the national rules. Green power trading must pair each generator with a user one-to-one so the environmental value is traceable; multi-year trading and a routine opening mechanism are encouraged; a retailer must set up its agency relationship with the user in advance and link all of its green demand to those agency users; and when a green-power contract is transferred, the corresponding environmental value transfers with it.

The contract must state the traded volume, the power curve and the price, and the price includes both the energy price and the green environmental value; the exchange forms a traceability relation from the contract and provides traceability services. That mirrors the February 2025 pricing notice (发改价格〔2025〕136号), which requires bid and clearing prices in green power trading to state the energy price and the green-certificate price separately, says provincial green power trading does not separately organise centralised bidding or rolling matching, and encourages multi-year PPAs between new-energy generators and users.

CNWattHub editorial method: when a counterparty quotes a single "green power price", ask for the split into energy price and certificate price, because the two are settled under different rules (section 3).

3. How settlement works

Under the 2025 rules, energy and environmental value are settled separately. Electricity that is included in the sustainable-development price settlement mechanism does not receive certificate income a second time. The settled environmental value is the smallest of three quantities for the month: the contract volume, the generator's on-grid output (excluding mechanism electricity) and the user's consumption; compensation for deviations in environmental value follows the contract.

The certificate that carries the environmental value is defined by 发改能源〔2023〕1044号 as the sole proof of the environmental attribute of renewable electricity and the sole voucher for recognising renewable power production and consumption; one certificate corresponds to 1,000 kWh; tradable certificates may be transferred for value between generators and users through certificate or green-power trading. Under the 2024 issuance and trading rules, the certificates matching a green power trade are transferred by the NEA qualification centre through the national certificate system on the basis of settlement information, and a certificate is valid for two years from the month the electricity was produced.

4. How big the market is

At the NEA press conference of 30 January 2026, the Deputy Director of the Market Regulation Department put national market-traded electricity in 2025 at 6.64 trillion kWh, up 7.4%, or 64.0% of total consumption. Within that, green power trading reached 328.5 TWh, up 38.3% year on year and 18 times the 2022 level; multi-year green PPAs accounted for 60 TWh; and a routine cross-operating-area mechanism for the first time let Greater Bay Area users use Inner Mongolia green power and Yangtze River Delta users bring in Guangxi green power. CNWattHub arithmetic on those two figures: 328.5 TWh is about 4.9% of the 6,640 TWh traded in the market in 2025.

The policy direction for demand is set by the March 2025 opinions on the certificate market: by 2027 a basically complete trading system with a sounder consumption mechanism that combines mandatory and voluntary consumption and nationwide free flow of certificates; by 2030 a further improved system with significantly higher voluntary demand.

5. Where green power meets the carbon market

A long-running question for buyers is whether a green-power purchase and a carbon-market instrument can be claimed for the same electricity. 国能综通新能〔2024〕124号 (26 August 2024) set a two-year transition: projects covered by the CCER methodologies for grid-connected offshore wind and grid-connected CSP (the notice calls them 深远海海上风电、光热发电项目) could choose either certificates or CCER, while PV and other wind projects were for the time being not newly admitted to the voluntary emission-reduction market; the notice was designed to prevent a project benefiting from both certificates and CCER, and took effect on 1 October 2024 with a stated validity of two years. CNWattHub reading of those dates: a two-year validity from 1 October 2024 runs to 30 September 2026, before this guide's date; no successor text was retrieved, so a buyer should check the current rule before counting both instruments. The 2021 interpretation had already flagged this double-payment problem.

6. Green power direct connection is a different product

In May 2025 the NDRC and NEA issued 发改能源〔2025〕650号 on green power direct connection (绿电直连). It defines the model as wind, solar or biomass generation that does not connect directly to the public grid but supplies a single user over a dedicated line with clear physical traceability, in grid-connected and off-grid types. For grid-connected projects, which are sized on the "load determines source" principle, regions with continuous spot markets may run mainly on self-consumption with surplus export, while regions without continuous spot markets may not feed back into the public grid. A project's annual self-consumed new-energy share must be at least 60% of its available generation and at least 30% of its total consumption, rising to at least 35% before 2030; the ceiling on exported electricity is set by the province and is generally no more than 20% of available generation. Grid-connected projects register under the market registration rules and in principle take part in the market as a whole; their load may not be under grid-company agency purchase; they must pay transmission and distribution charges, system operation fees, cross-subsidies and government funds and surcharges as nationally prescribed; and where the generator and the load have different owners, their mutual trade and exported electricity follow the certificate and green power trading rules.

CNWattHub editorial method: treat green power trading (grid-delivered, certificate-traced) and direct connection (dedicated line, physically traced) as two products with different cost stacks; the direct-connection notice makes the project bear grid charges even though the electricity does not use the public grid for the direct-line portion.

Reading table

Checklist

CNWattHub editorial method, not a sourced rule:

1. Ask for the contract's energy price and certificate price as two numbers, and for the power curve.
2. Confirm the generator–user pairing and that the exchange's traceability record names your project.
3. Check whether any of the contracted electricity is in the sustainable-development price settlement mechanism, which excludes it from certificate income.
4. If a counterparty offers CCER on the same electricity, check the current rule on certificate–CCER overlap before counting both; the 2024 transition notice had a two-year validity.
5. For a grid-connected direct-connection proposal, test the self-consumption floors (at least 60% of available generation and 30% of total consumption, 35% before 2030), check whether the local spot market runs continuously (if not, no electricity may be fed back into the public grid), and count the grid charges the project must still pay.

Scope limits

National texts and one NEA press conference only. Provincial green-power trading rules, trading calendars and price levels are not described, and no green-power or certificate price is quoted because none of the sources states one. The 2021 pilot scheme is cited through the NDRC-published interpretation, not its own text. Not legal, regulatory or investment advice.