Shenzhen has taken the lead nationwide in the development of virtual power plants (VPPs), with 61 licensed operators now active in the city—the highest number in China—according to recent data from the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center.
Source: CNR News
Shenzhen has taken the lead nationwide in the development of virtual power plants (VPPs), with 61 licensed operators now active in the city—the highest number in China—according to recent data from the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center. Collectively, these operators manage more than 60,000 controllable energy resources, including rooftop solar, EV charging stations, and commercial HVAC systems. Over half of the operators are private enterprises.
The surge in development follows new guidelines jointly released by the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration, which call for the rapid expansion and upgrading of VPP infrastructure across the country.
Since accelerating its VPP rollout in 2023, Shenzhen has activated demand-side response measures over 100 times. These operations have generated about 18.2 million yuan (roughly $2.5 million) in economic returns for operators, shifted more than 5.6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, and cut carbon emissions by an estimated 4,681 metric tons. Beyond driving business growth, VPPs in Shenzhen are increasingly acting like real power plants in helping balance the grid.
"The Shenzhen VPP management platform can control virtual plants just as reliably as conventional power stations," said Li Jiangnan, manager at the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center. "Depending on grid conditions, the system can respond in milliseconds, seconds, or minutes. It quickly identifies the appropriate virtual asset and dispatches it in real time, providing flexible load regulation to help manage peak demand, grid constraints, and transformer overloads."
Currently, the city's VPP system can adjust up to 1 million kilowatts of electricity demand—equivalent to the peak load of about 280,000 households. Looking ahead, Shenzhen plans to further scale up its VPP capabilities by unlocking the potential of distributed energy resources through market-driven mechanisms.
"Under government guidance, we aim to maximize the value of these decentralized assets and improve our technological self-reliance in both VPP software and hardware," said Cheng Renli, General Manager of the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center. "Our goal is to build a virtual power plant with over 1.2 GW of dispatchable capacity by the end of this year, helping to drive high-quality development across the sector."
Reproduced article do not represent the position of New Energy Era.