State Grid's Jiaxing Power Supply Co, located in Zhejiang province, has recently assisted two local firms, Cenway and Lazzen, in completing transactions of 2000 and 6000 green electricity certificates respectively, amounting to about 8 million kilowatt-hours of power in total.

Green electricity certificates serve as electronic IDs for green power transactions. Due to the homogeneity of electricity, once it enters the grid for transmission, its attributes cannot be distinguished by the grid or consumers. Only the generation side can differentiate it using green electricity certificates.

Each certificate represents 1,000 kWh of green power generated from renewable sources and it can be traded separately from green power, mainly at a national green electricity certificate trading platform, Beijing Power Exchange Center and Guangzhou Power Exchange Center.

In recent years, the National Energy Administration has actively promoted the comprehensive coverage of green electricity certificates. Experts say that issuing such certificates will enable new energy generation companies to generate additional revenue by selling the certificates and granting users proof of carbon footprint reductions.

Against this backdrop, State Grid's Jiaxing unit has launched the "electricity sales plus green electricity certificate" service model. This initiative not only provides electricity sales services but also helps customers obtain and trade green electricity certificates.

Since the introduction of the new service model, the company has collaborated with the local government to encourage enterprises in key energy-consuming sectors to purchase green electricity certificates that totaled over 1.5 million pieces, equaling 1.5 billion kWh of power.

"With an increasing number of economies incorporating carbon footprint assessments into foreign trade transactions, green electricity certificates provide traceable proof for Chinese electricity users on the consumption of green power," said Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University.

Lin added that regions and countries such as Europe and the United States have developed traceable proof on green power used across various industries. Relevant departments in China are also actively promoting the mutual recognition of green power certificates with those developed in other economies.