Dual carbon goals will help build unified energy market

A wind power plant in Dingxi, Gansu province. [Photo/Xinhua]

In a recent guideline, the central authorities said China will promote the construction of the national energy market to ensure the secure supply of energy while combining with it the goal of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and realizing carbon neutrality before 2060. This will help the construction of a unified national energy market.

China has become the world's largest energy producer and consumer, but it is not an energy power yet, given that the problems of diverging energy systems and rules, and unsmooth flow of resources, local protection and regional barriers exist.

The global energy supply chain is seeing growing challenges, adding more security risks and costs to China's energy imports. Therefore, the construction of a unified national energy market is not only necessary, but also inevitable for China's long-term development.

Such a market can promote the smooth flow of energy over a wider range, stimulate the vitality of market participants, improve the overall supply capacity of domestic energy in the short term, reduce the risks of energy supply and demand mismatch and market transaction costs, and help ensure the stable supply of energy.

It will also help break regional protection and market segmentation; unblock the "dual circulation" of domestic and international markets; remove the barriers to the low-carbon transformation of clean energy; promote the building of an integrated energy market in terms of basic systems, rules and standards, factor and resource markets, commodity and service markets, and market supervision; further standardize market competition and interventions; and better promote China's transformation from a "big energy country" to a "powerful energy country".

For this, China not only needs to promote the high-standard connectivity of market facilities, including the construction of a modern circulation network, improving market channels for information interaction and promoting the upgrading of the trading platform, but also needs to perfect the market system and mechanism, improve market rules, promote the market-based reform of factors, break market barriers, and maintain fair competition.

Relevant departments should form a unified perception, deepen reforms and improve overall planning and policy coordination. They should adhere to a problem-oriented approach, create a better market environment and open a wider circulation space to boost the vitality of major market players, release bigger market consumption potentials and give full play to market advantages.