Corporate Green Power Procurement in China: Progress, Analysis, and Outlook

China’s green power market is growing quickly. Corporate buyers interested in buying green power may find it difficult to navigate the fast-changing environment. To get corporate buyers familiar with the market and leverage their efforts to promote the development of green power, RMI produces an annual report on corporate green power procurement. The Corporate Green Power Procurement in China: Progress, Analysis, and Outlook: 2022 Annual Report summarizes policy updates, lays out five green power sourcing options in China, tracks the updates and addresses the challenges of each option, and finally provides outlooks.

Both the market and policy continued to boost China’s green power market development, but extreme weather events caused power supply issues highlighting the importance of increasing power security under high renewable penetration. This report identifies three projections to support corporate buyers to understand the market’s dynamic and make cost-effective procurement decisions:

Outlook 1: Green power consumption will continue to grow rapidly. It is recommended that corporate buyers break down their procurement goals, evaluate each procurement option per the situation of the provincial market, and develop as diverse a procurement portfolio as possible.

Outlook 2: The pricing mechanism of green power will be established. With a pricing mechanism that serves as a foundation, stakeholders can explore diverse procurement models (e.g., longer-term PPA), thus contributing to the continued development of the green power trading market.

Outlook 3: Ongoing renewable energy development needs to center on the premise of power security. Advancements in technology and development of a market mechanism will help tackle the security issue. Technology improvement will contribute to buyers’ granular green power goals, and an improved market mechanism will provide more market information to help buyers consume green power.