China mandates a unified national electricity market scorecard — the first time grid operators face standardized measurement

China's top economic planners just ordered a single measurement system for how well electricity markets work across the entire country. Until now, each region ran its own market with its own rules and no common way to compare performance — this creates a national standard that will force every grid operator and power company to report against the same metrics.

For 15 years, China has been trying to build a unified electricity market to move power efficiently across provinces and regions. The problem was always the same: no one could agree on what 'working well' actually meant, so each region optimized for its own interests. This directive creates a binding measurement system — 14 specific evaluation categories covering market efficiency, safety, environmental impact, and competition — which means grid operators can no longer hide behind local variation. The real shift is that performance becomes visible and comparable. Once you can measure something consistently across a country of 1.4 billion people, you can start enforcing it. This is the infrastructure for the next phase of market integration, not the integration itself.