Shenzhen News Network, September 20, 2025 It has been learned from the 2025 International Digital Energy Exhibition that Shenzhen’s virtual power plant has reached an adjustable capacity of 1.3 million kilowatts, accounting for over 5.4% of the city’s peak grid load—the highest proportion nationwide. This means that during peak electricity demand periods, Shenzhen’s virtual power plant can play a greater role in load reduction. Based on a household running two 1-horsepower air conditioners simultaneously during summer peak hours, this capacity is equivalent to ensuring air conditioning usage for 870,000 households.
Currently, Shenzhen has established a demonstration model integrating five “new” elements: new policies, new technologies, new standards, new industries, and new operational models. In March of this year, the first national-level special policy document for virtual power plants was officially released, providing a significant boost to the development of virtual power plants in China. Shenzhen has also introduced a series of policies to encourage participation from various stakeholders in the virtual power plant construction wave. The city established the nation’s first local virtual power plant standards committee, continuously improving the standards system covering management and technical fields, and exporting the “Shenzhen Standard” nationwide and globally.
Guided by these policies, related industries have rapidly expanded, with over 60 virtual power plant operators now in Shenzhen. In the recent first batch of announced virtual power plant operators in the Southern Regional Power Market, 70% were cultivated in Shenzhen. Meanwhile, technologies such as blockchain and artificial intelligence have made Shenzhen’s virtual power plant operations greener, data privacy more secure, multi-level monitoring more efficient, and operational models more mature. Since 2023, Shenzhen’s virtual power plant has conducted over 150 load adjustments—the highest frequency nationwide—supporting a 20% reduction in distribution network overload rates during peak load periods and generating direct economic benefits exceeding 200 million yuan.
As one of the first national pilot cities for large-scale vehicle-grid interaction applications, Shenzhen is also actively utilizing the “smart dispatch” function of virtual power plants to demonstrate vehicle-grid interaction applications. This has helped participating vehicle owners save an average of 15% on charging costs and increased off-peak charging pile utilization by 300%.
“In the next step, we will continue to expand resource access scale, support Shenzhen’s vehicle-grid interaction demonstration construction and new energy integration, improve the market-oriented mechanism design for virtual power plants, enhance industrial development capabilities, and promote the transformation of Shenzhen’s virtual power plant achievements.”
