Zhejiang’s annual electricity purchase from the inter-provincial electricity spot market has exceeded 10 billion kilowatt-hours for three consecutive years

China News Service, Hangzhou, November 10 (Bao Mengni, Zhang Yue, Wang Qianying) According to State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power’s news on the 10th, as of November 10, Zhejiang’s electricity purchases from the inter-provincial electricity spot market in 2026 reached 10.427 billion kilowatt hours, accounting for 24% of the national transaction volume. This is the third consecutive year that Zhejiang has achieved inter-provincial spot annual electricity purchase exceeding the "10 billion" mark.

Zhejiang is a province that receives large amounts of electricity. External electricity accounts for about one-third of the province's electricity consumption. At the same time, the installed capacity of new energy in Zhejiang Province has grown rapidly. Currently, the installed capacity of wind and solar new energy has exceeded 76 million kilowatts, accounting for more than 40% of the total installed capacity in the province. The volatility and randomness of the output have become increasingly prominent.

"Photovoltaic power output is strong during the day and returns to zero at night. This is coupled with the increase in residential electricity load, and the pressure on power balance during the evening peak is relatively high." Tang Lu, a senior engineer at the Zhejiang Electric Power Dispatch and Control Center of the State Grid, said that it is difficult to fully meet the demand for peak supply through intra-provincial regulation alone, and it is necessary to rely on inter-provincial surplus and shortage mutual assistance to balance supply and demand.

On the basis of annual and monthly mid- and long-term transactions, inter-provincial spot power purchases are made using the remaining transmission capacity of inter-provincial channels and based on 15-minute time-of-use price signals to achieve mutual benefit between surplus and shortage. The market will be launched in 2022 and will enter official operation in October 2024. Relying on the cross-regional mutual aid capabilities of the national unified power market, it has become an important channel for the large receiving provinces to balance supply and demand and for the consumption of clean energy in large energy provinces under the condition of high proportion of new energy access.

According to statistics, Zhejiang has purchased more than 10 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity from the inter-provincial spot market for three consecutive years, with the largest purchased electricity reaching 10.56 million kilowatts. Inter-provincial spot transactions are gradually becoming a normal means of short-term surplus and deficit adjustment in Zhejiang.

In terms of trading strategy, State Grid Zhejiang Electric Power has introduced an artificial intelligence-assisted trading decision-making system to coordinate "guaranteing supply during peak peaks and controlling costs and increasing efficiency during low valleys". It dynamically adjusts the timing and scale of power purchase based on load forecasts, channel capabilities and price trends, forming a closed loop of "prediction-strategy-review" to promote power purchase strategies from relying on manual experience to data-driven, AI-assisted refined decision-making.