From green electricity "coming from afar" to "being taken nearby", the bottleneck of local consumption of new energy has been solved, and the most critical price mechanism puzzle in new business forms such as green electricity direct connection has been completed.
The Paper has learned that the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration recently jointly issued the "Notice on Improving the Pricing Mechanism to Promote Local Consumption of Renewable Energy Power Generation" (hereinafter referred to as the "Notice"). This clarifies the economic responsibilities between local consumption projects and the public power grid. Through differentiated payment designs, new energy projects can pay for power supply reliability based on their own needs. Industry insiders believe that the introduction of this electricity pricing policy is timely and necessary, easing pressure on the power system while unlocking a new blue ocean for local consumption of new energy. The "Notice" will take effect on October 1, 2025.
In response to reporters' questions, the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration explained that despite the large-scale development of renewable energy in my country in recent years, this has also faced challenges such as increasing difficulty in absorbing and utilizing it, and increased pressure on power system regulation. All parties are actively exploring new models for absorbing and utilizing renewable energy. These include localized absorption models such as direct green power connections, zero-carbon industrial parks, and integrated power generation, grid, load, and storage. These can effectively promote the absorption and utilization of renewable energy, meet the green energy needs of businesses, and alleviate pressure on power system regulation.
Renewable energy generation and local consumption projects both generate and consume electricity, with the company acting as the power generator when generating and as the user when consuming. "To support the development of local consumption of new energy, the national and local governments have introduced a number of policies and encouraged pilot programs, but overall development remains slow. This is primarily due to a lack of clarity regarding project boundaries and supply guarantee responsibilities, as well as the financial responsibility that projects should bear for providing stable power supply services to the public grid," the two departments stated.
This actually involves the issue of sharing responsibilities for ensuring stable electricity supply during the development of new electricity business models.
Simply put, direct green power connections, zero-carbon industrial parks, and integrated power generation, grid-load-storage, and energy storage are like teenagers who have achieved a degree of autonomy but are still unable to completely break away from their parents. When a project's power supply is sufficient to meet electricity demand, they can easily disconnect from the main grid. However, the inherent intermittent output of renewable energy generation means that many projects still rely on the main grid for backup.
Electricity is a commodity, and the highly reliable power supply we take for granted isn't inherent to the system. Under the current electricity pricing mechanism, grid companies channel their reliability costs through transmission and distribution prices, while power generation companies recover these costs through system operating fees. However, this pricing system is no longer adaptable to the development needs of local consumption projects. Because local consumption projects bear insufficient costs to ensure stable supply, fairness issues are becoming increasingly prominent.
"Local consumption projects are connected to the public power grid. In addition to the normal purchase of off-grid electricity, the more important thing is that the public grid provides backup, support, and guarantee services to local consumption projects in emergency situations. Essentially, local consumption projects are purchasing reliability products from the public grid." Senior power expert Gu Feng wrote an analysis, arguing that the lack of unified pricing standards and clear and reasonable definitions of economic responsibilities has led to a widespread misconception in the industry that local consumption projects are simply equivalent to "preferential electricity" and that grid reliability is a free service. Some even blame grid companies for hindering local consumption projects in order to maintain their own power sales. "In essence, this is a 'pay the bill' dispute—they enjoy more reliable electricity services, but there are no policy or institutional regulations on who should pay this 'more reliable service fee', how much, and how to pay it. The issuance of the 'Notice' is timely."
The Notice clarifies that for projects using renewable energy as their primary power source, including power sources, loads, and energy storage, connected to the public grid as a whole, with a clear physical interface and safety responsibility lines, the public grid will provide reliable power supply and other services based on its connection capacity to ensure safe and stable electricity use. Following the principle of "benefiting, bearing, and paying," projects consuming the power system's stable supply will be equitably responsible for transmission and distribution fees, system operating expenses, and other costs. Projects not connected to the public grid will not be subject to stable supply guarantee fees.
This is because, to ensure that nearby consumption projects can still access electricity at any time when their own generation is insufficient, the power system needs to provide stable supply guarantee services based on their grid connection capacity. These services include regulation services and "channel guarantee" services. Regulation services are primarily provided by generators and are economically reflected in system operating fees, while "channel guarantee" services are provided by power grid companies and are economically reflected in transmission and distribution fees. Therefore, in accordance with the principle of fair burden sharing, nearby consumption projects should pay transmission and distribution fees and system operating fees based on their grid connection capacity.
Gu Feng explained that the "Notice" points out that local consumption projects also have to pay system operation fees (the transmission capacity of the access to the public power grid is the "highway", and the various reliability products provided by the power generation side are "rescue vehicles". The width of the "highway" determines the number of "rescue vehicles" required). However, in order to encourage the development of local consumption projects, the system operation fee will be temporarily paid based on the amount of power connected to the grid, and will be gradually transitioned to payment based on occupied capacity, etc. The system operation fee and policy cross-subsidy-induced new gains and losses will be temporarily exempted for self-generated and self-used electricity.
This shows that while ensuring fair cost sharing, the policy design also takes into account the development incentives for nearby consumption projects.
The "Notice" also clarifies that when local consumption projects act as users, they have equal market status with other industrial and commercial users, and in principle they must also directly participate in the electricity market as a unified entity.
The two departments stated that the improved local consumption price mechanism has refined and clarified the boundaries, supply guarantee responsibilities, and economic responsibilities of local consumption projects, and is expected to solve the development difficulties faced by the current local consumption model of new energy, and will have a positive and far-reaching impact on the new energy industry and the entire power system.
On the one hand, the document will effectively promote the consumption and utilization of new energy. Local consumption projects can save costs by using self-generated renewable energy and reasonably reducing grid capacity. Furthermore, the improved pricing mechanism also provides certain support for local consumption projects. Overall, this document has significant economic advantages, which is expected to accelerate development and promote the consumption and utilization of new energy.
On the other hand, it will effectively reduce the pressure on power system regulation. Under the improved pricing mechanism, the smaller the grid connection capacity of a nearby consumption project, the lower the stable supply guarantee fee it will need to pay. This will effectively guide projects to improve their balancing capabilities and reduce grid connection capacity by leveraging flexible regulation capabilities and independently configuring energy storage, thereby alleviating system regulation pressure.