China’s Southern Regional Electricity Market entered formal operation across five provinces and regions, with more than 290,000 registered participants.

The Southern Regional Electricity Market entered formal operation on October 24, covering Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hainan. Reporting describes coal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and photovoltaic generation trading within one market under a common set of bidding rules.

Registered market participants exceeded 290,000, approximately one-quarter of the national total. They include generators, electricity retailers, electricity users, new types of energy storage, and virtual power plants; the figure counts market participants, not generating units or data centers.

CCTV reporting put the region’s renewable-generation utilization rate at more than 95%, above the national average. It also described the market as the world’s largest and busiest “electricity supermarket,” although the supplied messages provide no comparative methodology supporting that characterization.

At the Guangzhou launch meeting, the National Energy Administration called for closer integration of interprovincial and provincial markets, stronger grid infrastructure, improved disclosure and risk monitoring, and orderly expansion of cross-border electricity trading. The reporting also identifies 2030 as the target for substantially establishing a unified national electricity-market system, rather than an already achieved outcome.