China News Service, Changzhou, November 12, Title: Changzhou: Using terminal “micro-units” to leverage changes in the energy system
Author Tang Juan Liu Tian Cha Ziyi
The whole village photovoltaic project in Heshu Village, Lijia Town, Wujin District, Changzhou has recently been connected to the grid and put into operation. Villagers only provide roofs and receive a one-time initial installation fee and annual stable rent. State Grid Changzhou Power Supply Company adopts an access plan of “800 volt centralized confluence and 10 kV medium voltage grid connection” to significantly improve power quality and power supply reliability. The project is not big, but it touches on a practical problem: Where to find space for green power development?
Changzhou is the only city in the country that has four "national business cards" including the national carbon peak pilot, the national zero-carbon park construction, the national vehicle-grid interactive large-scale application pilot, and the national new power system construction capacity improvement pilot. The proportion of industrial electricity consumption ranks among the top in Jiangsu Province, and peak loads exceeding tens of millions of kilowatts have become the norm. There is a high dependence on external primary energy sources, and the pressures of ensuring supply and reducing carbon emissions are superimposed. The four business cards point to the same question: whether the end resources scattered in parks, scenic spots, villages, and bus stations can be organized, mobilized, and used greenly. Changzhou’s answer lies in microgrid, the “minimum unit” of the new power system.
The whole village is equipped with photovoltaics, and the roofs of farmhouses are transformed into green power resources. Photo by Yu Xin
From a rooftop to a net
For the project in Heshu Village, the villagers do not have to pay any money. The village committee organizes roof development and the power grid company solves the technical problems of grid connection. The incision is on the roof, pointing to how the "whole village contiguous development" of distributed photovoltaics can be implemented.
In Chuangzhi Park of Liyang High-tech Zone, the largest near-zero carbon smart park microgrid in Jiangsu Province is now in operation. With 6,200 kilowatts of rooftop photovoltaics, 2,500 kilowatts/4,572 kilowatt hours of energy storage systems, smart charging piles, and cold and thermal storage energy stations, a “smart brain” monitors the whereabouts of each kilowatt-hour of green electricity and carbon reduction data in real time. The annual comprehensive income exceeds 7.2 million yuan, and the equivalent kilowatt-hour cost of electricity for the park enterprises is reduced by 0.25 yuan.
In the Nanshan Bamboo Sea Scenic Area, a 1,120-kilowatt photovoltaic carport and 173 charging piles form an interactive microgrid. It implements tidal pricing and uses price leverage to alleviate the pain point of long charging queues. Changzhou Transportation Vehicle Network Interactive Smart Microgrid Comprehensive Energy Station aggregates a 660-kilowatt dispatchable resource pool and is currently the vehicle network interactive hub node with the largest power scale and the highest degree of aggregation in the public transportation field in Jiangsu Province. The moving wheels here become the "power bank" of the microgrid.
At present, Changzhou has built a microgrid cluster covering scenarios such as vehicle-network interaction, building energy efficiency, industrial enterprises, and park source, grid, and load storage.
From gathering together to being able to coordinate
Getting together is just the prerequisite. In August this year, Jiangsu Province carried out a practical drill for rapid response to market-oriented peak loads during the peak summer season in 2026. Within the call range allowed to participate, the effective peak-shifting load of the five directly-controlled virtual power plants in Changzhou accounts for more than half of the effective peak-shifting load of the province's directly-controlled virtual power plants.
Supporting this performance is Jiangsu Province’s first municipal-level virtual power plant management center to be completed in 2024. The load-end regulation resource management platform uses microgrids as the main gathering unit, focusing on aggregating adjustable resources such as energy storage, photovoltaics, charging piles, and 5G base stations. The measured maximum regulation capacity is 326,000 kilowatts. The number of virtual power plant operators cultivated in Changzhou has increased from 9 in 2024 to 29, with 3,914 aggregated users, an increase of over 312%.
Liyang Chuangzhi Park Microgrid, source, grid, load and storage collaborate to create a near-zero carbon park. Photo by Yu Xin
After the aggregation and adjustment capabilities are improved, new contradictions between supply and demand emerge. On the supply side, the city's industry and commerce are basically covered with roofs that are easy to develop and consume; on the demand side, as the construction of zero-carbon parks and zero-carbon factories accelerates, export manufacturing companies have unprecedented demand for "verifiable, physically traceable" green electricity. Relying on the self-developed AI tool of "determining sources based on load", Changzhou first establishes a reserve library of enterprises with green power needs, then looks for power sources and intelligently outputs source-charge matching solutions. State Grid Changzhou Power Supply Company used the "load-based source determination" intelligent circle selection to lock in Jingpin Optoelectronics' 3-kilometer foreign Mao reducer photovoltaic power station, which facilitated the generator and the power consumer to reach a bilateral agreement at the Provincial Power Trading Center, allowing green power to be directly delivered and physically traceable to its source.
From "making good use of every kilowatt hour of electricity" to "making good use of every touch of green", the functional boundaries of Changzhou's microgrid are being rewritten. When electricity consumers become "prosumers," and when rooftops and water surfaces in urban and rural areas are connected to a smart and coordinated green electricity network, Changzhou uses the practice of microgrids to find a replicable and popularized path for the construction of new power systems.
