With the support of Energy Foundation China, Beijing Nengjian Technology Development Co., Ltd. held an expert workshop on March 3, 2022, discussing how to improve Beijing’s green electricity procurement and trading mechanisms. The workshop collected the concerns of industrial stakeholders and identified the current policy obstacles, in hopes of helping implement green electricity purchases in Beijing in the near future.

Over 20 experts from the Beijing Municipal Ecology and Environment Bureau, the Municipal Commission of Urban Management, Beijing Power Exchange Center, State Grid Corporation of China, China Renewable Energy Engineering Institute, and other organizations attended the workshop. Liang XU, a deputy director at the Beijing Power Exchange Center, said that the government should guide the consumption of green electricity from two aspects: promoting green electricity trading among users and adopting taxation and other tools to encourage their utilization. XU also shared the success story of green electricity purchases in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. Jian GENG, the director of the Optimal Dispatching Office of the Power Automation Department of China Electric Power Research Institute, said that green electricity trading currently faced difficulties on four fronts: how to calculate local and off-grid green electricity volume; how to connect the green electricity market, green electricity certificates, and the carbon market; how will China’s green electricity certificates obtain international recognition; and how to improve the trading when the multiple markets evolve. GENG suggested to ensure correct pricing signals at the micro level and proposed to establish the green electricity market framework first then redefine the details.

The workshop addressed Beijing’s urgent need for stakeholder insights before the launch of the local green electricity market. Going forward, the Clean Power Program of Energy Foundation China will continue to support analysis on this topic and publish findings for its implementation on the ground.