China sets uniform rules for how electricity gets measured and paid across the national grid

China's top economic and energy agencies just issued binding rules for how electricity transactions are metered and settled across a unified national market. This means every power plant, grid operator, and buyer now follows the same measurement and payment standards instead of regional variations.

For years, China's electricity market operated in regional silos with different metering rules, settlement timelines, and payment methods. Unifying these rules removes friction that was keeping power from flowing efficiently across provinces. The real effect is that a coal plant in Inner Mongolia can now sell to a factory in Guangdong without negotiating separate measurement protocols, and grid operators can dispatch power based on economics rather than administrative boundaries. This is infrastructure plumbing — boring, but it's what lets a national market actually function instead of just existing on paper.