On 11 February 2026 Beijing published a long-awaited blueprint to weave China’s fragmented power markets into a single national system. The State Council General Office’s "Implementation Opinions on Improving a Nationwide Unified Electricity Market System" sets two deadlines: a working unified market by 2030 and full completion by 2035, with a formal roll-out of spot trading expected to be essentially in place by 2027.
The plan aims to mainstream market-based allocation of electricity by having all generators and non-protected users participate directly; market transactions are expected to account for roughly 70% of total electricity consumption by 2030. Officials envision cross-provincial and intra-provincial trades that are no longer siloed by local boundaries, a harmonised rulebook and technical standards, and a unified supervisory framework to deter local protectionism and abuse of market power.
Practical measures in the document are broad and technical. Beijing wants a national trading architecture that moves from separate provincial and interprovincial transactions to a model in which market actors register once and have their bids decomposed and matched nationwide. It calls for interconnection of regional trading platforms, possible creation of a national power trading centre, unified data and disclosure models, and common rules for settlement, information exchange and credit evaluation.
The reform package covers the full set of market instruments: a formalised spot market for real‑time price discovery, strengthened mid‑to‑long‑term contracting to secure supply, auxiliary services markets (frequency and reserve), a capacity pricing mechanism to underpin reliability, and a national green‑power market built around tradable certificates. It also sets rules for retail markets, encourages virtual power plants and aggregated distributed resources, and signals allowance for blockchain and other digital tools in green certification.
Politically and economically the document is a balancing act. Beijing stresses that marketisation must be pursued "on the premise of ensuring system security" and retains a role for planning—especially in guaranteeing energy security and emergency interventions. The blueprint explicitly targets the long‑standing divide between the State Grid and China Southern Grid operating regions and instructs regulators to remove barriers that have hindered cross‑regional dispatch of clean energy.
If implemented, the reforms could reduce renewable curtailment by enabling wider geographic sharing of wind and solar, sharpen price signals to attract private investment in flexible capacity and storage, and lower system costs through more efficient dispatch. Markets for ancillary services and capacity payment mechanisms would provide new revenue streams for balancing resources such as pumped storage, batteries and, for now, flexible thermal units.
Yet delivery will be hard. The centre needs to overcome entrenched local incentives: provincial governments have long used electricity pricing and allocation to support local industry and fiscal balances. Transmission bottlenecks remain a technical and investment challenge, and the success of spot and capacity markets depends on careful design of settlement rules and guardrails against market power. The State will also have to manage the political economy of coal, since capacity mechanisms and reliability rules will determine the future role and profitability of thermal generators.
For international businesses and climate watchers the timetable is significant. A nationwide market with unified certification and transparent pricing would make China a more predictable destination for grid‑scale storage, green hydrogen projects and long‑term renewable offtakes. It could also influence global carbon accounting if China integrates green certificates into its emissions frameworks and aligns standards internationally. Implementation will determine whether this is a decisive structural reform or a steady, state‑led adaptation of markets to preserve systemic control while expanding efficiency.