The Southern Regional Electricity Market, linking Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou and Hainan, formally began operating on the 24th. It is the first regional-level case in building a unified national power market, with coal, hydro, nuclear, wind and solar bidding under one set of rules.
Chinese outlets including Science and Technology Daily and 21st Century Business Herald report that the Southern Regional Electricity Market, China’s first regional power market, moved from trial to formal operation on October 24. Under the guidance of the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, it went through more than a year of varied extreme operating conditions; continuous settlement trial operation began in June 2025. Participants include generators, retailers and users in the five provinces and regions, plus new energy storage and virtual power plants.
광고 문의 · 300×250What changes
Each province used to run its own market with different trading rules, so power flows between provinces were easily blocked. The outlets gave the example of surplus Yunnan hydropower that was hard to send to Guangdong, where demand exists. In the new market, coal, hydro, nuclear, wind, solar and gas generation bid under the same rules and prices follow supply and demand; spot prices reportedly update every 15 minutes.
Cross-region transmission corridors also shift from simple energy trading to market-based bidding for transmission capacity, so prices reflect how congested a corridor is. The reports say residential and agricultural tariffs are unaffected, while commercial and industrial users can pick plans that suit them better.
The trial in numbers
According to Science and Technology Daily, cumulative traded volume from January to September 2026 came to nearly 900 billion kilowatt-hours, over 70% of power sold across the network. About 40% of newly sold power came from renewables, and the largest single-day cleared volume exceeded 4 billion kilowatt-hours. Registered participants topped 290,000, renewable utilization stayed above 95%, and cross-region trade exceeded 19.4 billion kilowatt-hours, a record.
China Southern Power Grid market director Li Minhong said the market had withstood real trading and multi-scenario tests. Shanghai University of Electric Power professor Xie Jingdong called it a replicable institutional model for the national unified market. Huang He, general manager of the southern dispatch center, said participation will be widened and storage and similar flexible resources allowed into spot and ancillary-service trading. 21st Century Business Herald adds that plans for the 15th Five-Year Plan period include a wider market and green-power cooperation with Hong Kong, Macao and the Lancang-Mekong region.