China's market-traded electricity up 23.4% in Jan-July

Electricity traded through China's power exchange centers reached 4.43 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the first seven months of 2026, up 23.4 percent year-on-year, as Beijing continues to deepen market-oriented reforms across the energy sector, official data showed.

During the January–July period, green electricity trading rose 5.6 percent from a year earlier to 191.8 billion kWh, reflecting expanding corporate appetite for clean energy. Meanwhile, electricity purchased by power grid enterprises through market-oriented agency services totaled 485.7 billion kWh, according to the latest data released by the National Energy Administration.

In July alone, nationwide market-traded electricity reached 740.4 billion kWh, a year-on-year increase of 18.5 percent.

A breakdown of July's figures shows that intra-provincial transactions expanded 19.0 percent year-on-year to 549.1 billion kWh, while cross-provincial and cross-regional transactions climbed 17.2 percent to 191.3 billion kWh, highlighting enhanced inter-regional power transmission and balancing capabilities.

Green power trading in July stood at 27.7 billion kWh, up 2.7 percent year-on-year, while grid-operated market agency purchases totaled 87.2 billion kWh during the month.

The sustained expansion in market-traded volume underscores China's ongoing push to build a unified, flexible national electricity market, optimizing power allocation across provincial borders while supporting the country's broader green transition goals.