The world's largest electricity supermarket has opened, how to calculate electricity accounts in Hainan
The peak electricity consumption of an island province occurs at night, while its main source of new energy - photovoltaics - only generates electricity during the day. This supply-demand mismatch dilemma has plagued Hainan Power Grid for many years, until Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Hainan provinces and regions put "electricity" in the same supermarket and freely buy and sell it under the same set of rules.
On October 24th, China's first regional electricity market, the Southern Regional Electricity Market, officially began operation.
Since the start of continuous settlement trial operation in June 2025, this world's largest and busiest "electricity supermarket" has registered over 290000 operating entities, with a cumulative trading volume of nearly 900 billion kilowatt hours in the first nine months of this year.
What does it mean for the market when administrative boundaries are no longer trading boundaries for electricity? How to calculate this' electricity account 'in Hainan?
Why put electricity from five provinces and regions into one 'pool'?
Electricity is difficult to store in large quantities and requires instantaneous supply-demand balance. This physical property determines that the electricity market naturally requires a larger market: the larger the market, the easier it is for supply and demand to level up in fluctuations.
From "West East Electricity Transmission" to "North South Electricity Supply", inter provincial power mutual assistance solves the problem of "insufficient market size".
However, the power structure, electricity pricing mechanism, and market rules among provinces are not unified. In the past, inter provincial electricity trading relied heavily on administrative coordination and planned allocation. The lack of price signals makes it impossible to reflect the spatiotemporal value of electricity with high peak prices and low valley prices.
What the southern regional electricity market needs to do is to return the "baton" of electricity trading to the market.
The unification of rules is the first step of marketization: various business entities in the five provinces and regions participate in market competition on the same platform, and coal-fired power, hydropower, nuclear power, wind power, photovoltaic power, and gas-fired power are put on the same "shelf", bidding and forming prices under the same set of rules.
This means that industrial and commercial users are no longer limited to purchasing electricity within their own province, but can compare prices across provinces.
The spot electricity price, which refreshes every 15 minutes, is like an electronic price tag on a "shelf" that follows the market and can rise or fall. This price signal is transmitted to the power supply side, reshaping the supply logic: no longer just thinking about "generating more electricity", but considering "when and how to generate it more cost effectively".
The data confirms the actual effectiveness of marketization. In the first nine months of this year, the cumulative electricity traded in the southern regional electricity market accounted for over 70% of the total electricity sold on the grid, with the maximum daily cleared electricity exceeding 4 billion kilowatt hours.
How does the opening of the 'Electricity Supermarket' affect Hainan?
Between the sea and sky, wind turbines spread their wings to capture the wind; At the end of June this year, Hainan's energy development reached a historic turning point as the installed capacity of new energy accounted for 50.1% of the total installed capacity in the province, with photovoltaic arrays chasing the light day by day.
Hainan, with its infinite scenery, is booming with green electricity. But its temperament of "relying on the weather to make a living" also brings new challenges to the power grid - the photovoltaic output surges at noon on sunny days, while the wind and solar output drops sharply on cloudy days and at night, and the peak electricity consumption is mostly concentrated at night, thus forming a spatial and temporal mismatch contradiction of "not enough during the day and not enough at night".
This intermittency and strong volatility occur in Hainan, where the grid scale is relatively small and peak shaving resources are scarce. Coupled with impacts such as typhoons, extreme high temperatures, and gas field failures, the pressure to ensure supply is multiplied.
If you zoom in to the five provinces and regions, you will find that it is precisely this mismatch that has given rise to trading demand.
The relevant person in charge of Hainan Power Grid Company of Southern Power Grid introduced that relying on the cross provincial mutual aid channel of cross sea cables, Hainan is exploring the formation of a "day to night" two-way mutual aid trading pattern: surplus photovoltaic power is sent out at noon, and electricity from outside the province is introduced to make up for the shortfall during the evening electricity peak.
Ensuring supply and promoting consumption are the most tangible dividends brought to Hainan by the southern regional electricity market. During one year of continuous settlement and trial operation, the market-oriented settlement electricity in Hainan reached 30.978 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for 55% of the total electricity consumption in the province; The total transmission capacity of cross sea cables exceeds 1.6 billion kilowatt hours.
The efficient flow of electricity resources on a larger scale results in more comprehensive market competition and more efficient resource allocation.
In the first nine months of this year, the electricity price for Hainan's industrial and commercial households decreased by 5.86% year-on-year. For cost sensitive enterprises such as digital industries and high energy consuming industries, this is a tangible profit margin saved from costs.
Which companies benefit from the rewriting of electricity trading rules?
From the early stage of the 14th Five Year Plan to September this year, the number of registered entities in the electricity market in the province has increased from 460 to 6830, a growth rate of over 13 times. The increasing participation and activity of enterprises indicate that this is a worthwhile and promising business.
Let's first look at the power generation end. Power generation companies with regulatory capabilities are the first to taste the sweetness.
Taking the Hainan Qiongzhong Pumped Storage Power Station of Southern Power Grid Energy Storage Company as an example, the station absorbs surplus green electricity generated by photovoltaics during the day and stores it, and fully connects to the grid for power transmission during peak electricity consumption at night. This "day charging and night discharging" adjustment ability can be realized in the spot market as a price difference income between the low and high peaks of the same kilowatt hour.
Let's take another look at the electricity sales end. Electricity sales companies are accelerating their transformation into comprehensive energy service providers and virtual power plant operators, such as energy efficiency diagnostics, green power procurement, and aggregation regulation.
Ultimately, after the rules are rewritten, dividends will also be redistributed. The enterprise that is most sensitive to price signals and is the first to adjust its business logic will be the first to catch it.
A change is worth paying attention to. In the first nine months of this year, Hainan's new energy grid connected electricity increased by 22.64% year-on-year.
For Hainan, which is accelerating the construction of a clean energy island, this means that dividends can be deposited into the accounts of more enterprises along with one kilowatt hour of green electricity. On the one hand, the trading channels for green electricity and green certificates have been opened up, which not only allows many outward oriented enterprises in Hainan with green energy demand to compare prices and purchase on a larger scale, but also allows new energy enterprises to "go global" at a lower cost and generate more "green" income.
Many companies have already laid out their plans. For example, Datang Hainan Company relies on its abundant clean energy resources in the province to build a full chain green power sales system that integrates green power resource integration, customized trading services, green certificate issuance, and carbon asset matching.
On the other hand, the increase in the proportion of new energy consumption has put forward more demands for power regulation services such as energy storage and load aggregation, and the imagination space of new business models is opening up. Just a few days ago, Guoneng Daily announced its intention to invest in the construction of an independent energy storage project in Lingshui.
It is not difficult to find that maximizing the value of each kilowatt hour of electricity is now becoming a diversified business in Hainan.
