绿电直供的两道算术题：零碳园区从示范名单走向验收的工程账Two arithmetic questions of direct green electricity supply: The project account of zero-carbon parks moving from the demonstration list to acceptance

From being listed for construction to actually passing acceptance, zero-carbon parks have to solve two arithmetic problems along the way. On November 4, 2026, the Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Department of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the list of provincial zero-carbon park constructions. A total of 44 parks in the province were shortlisted, with 11 from Yancheng, accounting for a quarter of the total. Previously, on December 26, 2025, the General Office of the National Development and Reform Commission, the General Office of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Comprehensive Department of the National Energy Administration jointly issued the "List of National Zero-Carbon Park Constructions (First Batch)," which included 52 parks in total. The first arithmetic problem is carbon emission intensity: the national zero-carbon park construction indicator system sets carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption as the core indicator. For parks with an annual comprehensive energy consumption of 200,000 to 1 million tons of standard coal, the requirement is not more than 0.2 tons per ton of standard coal; for parks with more than 1 million tons of standard coal, the requirement is not more than 0.3 tons per ton of standard coal.

The second arithmetic problem concerns the source and ownership of green electricity: The indicator system clarifies that the electricity consumption in the park should preferably be met through direct supply from green power, with a principle that the proportion of direct supply should not be less than 50%, and to promote the implementation of models such as direct green power connection and nearby access of renewable energy to the incremental distribution network. These two problems are one about intensity, the other about evidence, and the answers both lie in engineering details.

The intensity problem: The gap in Shanxi parks is on the order of tenfold.

On November 4, 2026, the Shanxi Energy Research Association held a seminar on the practical implementation of green power parks and zero-carbon parks. A set of data revealed the difficulty of this intensity problem: Shanxi has formed a three-tier system with 2 national-level zero-carbon parks, 7 provincial-level zero-carbon parks, and 13 green power park pilot sites. However, among the 9 zero-carbon parks, the unit energy consumption carbon emissions range from 1.48 to 3.34 tons of CO2 per ton of standard coal. Compared with the access threshold of 0.2 to 0.3 tons per ton of standard coal, the lowest one still exceeds it by more than five times, and the highest exceeds it by more than ten times. This is not an issue of statistical methodology, but an issue of industrial structure.

According to Zhang Zhixiong, a senior engineer at Shanxi Provincial Investment Planning Research Institute Co., Ltd., who spoke at the same seminar, the 71 industrial development zones at the provincial level or above in Shanxi account for 46% of the province's total energy consumption, equivalent to approximately 260 million tons of carbon emissions, nearly half of the province's total. The carbon emission levels of these zones directly determine the province's overall carbon emissions. In a province whose industrial foundation is based on metallurgy, coking, and coal, reducing carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption in industrial parks to below 0.3 cannot be achieved merely by changing the energy source; it also requires changes in processes, fuels, and equipment. Wang Kangmin, Executive Dean of the New Energy Industry School at Shanxi Energy College, introduced that Datong Economic Development Zone has already formulated a specialized plan for zero-carbon parks from 2026 to 2030, coordinating industrial layout, energy systems, infrastructure, and industrial development in a 'park within a park' approach to align energy supply conditions, project continuity, and enterprise demand. Meanwhile, Yangquan High-Tech Industrial Zone is advancing 26 key support projects within a 21.65-square-kilometer area, focusing on upgrading the distribution network, connecting green electricity directly, and meeting enterprises' energy needs.

From a technical accounting perspective, the electrification retrofit cost of a heavy-load energy park is about three to five times that of a light industrial park. The metallurgical and coking processes rely on fossil fuel heat sources; coke ironmaking and high-temperature cracking cannot simply be replaced by electrification. The entire reaction furnace, heat exchanger, and even the entire production line need to be systematically redesigned. This cost cannot be bypassed through optimization at the technical level and can only be absorbed through step-by-step replacement of the process route—first improve energy efficiency and resource recycling, then carry out 'green electricity replacement,' and finally implement 'direct green electricity connection' in suitable sections.

Evidence for this issue: Why physical traceability is more robust than green certificates.

The second question is more subtle than the first because it tests not the intensity but the chain of evidence. As the EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is gradually implemented, the carbon footprint accounting for exported products is becoming increasingly strict. The proportion of green electricity used in the production process directly affects carbon costs. Introducing international certification bodies into industrial parks and promoting mutual recognition between product carbon footprint accounting, evaluation, and certification standards allows companies to obtain internationally recognized green certificates without leaving the park. However, green electricity itself does not constitute a certificate; the certificate comes from a verifiable physical path.

The approach of Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park is to treat this chain as an engineering project. Public information shows that the park has established the nation’s first park-level 'one-to-many' green electricity direct supply production application scenario. The pilot area of 1.4 square kilometers has fully achieved direct green electricity supply, cumulatively completing 23 million kWh of 'physically traceable' green electricity. The international cooperation zero-carbon industrial park in the pilot area has a green electricity traceability rate of 75%, and the carbon factor in the pilot area is 0.14 tons of CO₂ per megawatt-hour, which is more than 75% lower than the national average. The park has collaborated with international organizations such as SGS to carry out product carbon footprint certification. Ge Jun, director of the park's investment promotion department, introduced that the park utilizes the abundant wind and solar green electricity resources of Dafeng Port and works closely with the State Grid to achieve physically traceable, high-proportion, and stable consumption of green electricity. The park has obtained the British Standards Institution's green electricity direct connection statement and is currently conducting a pilot project on hourly green electricity trading, allowing enterprises to clearly know the generation site, generation period, and electricity flow of the green electricity they use, ensuring that the source is verifiable, the flow is trackable, and the data is certifiable.

The revenue logic for companies in the park is therefore dual. Hu Jinming, account manager at Jiangsu Bulu Electric Technology Co., Ltd., explained that the company relies on the exclusive green electricity line of the Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park to achieve stable direct supply of photovoltaic clean power for production, reducing the cost of renewable energy electricity to below 30%. At the same time, in terms of carbon footprint and traceability of green electricity, it meets export standards, effectively offsetting the pressure brought by foreign carbon tariffs and helping companies reduce overall export costs. These two figures are only meaningful when viewed together—looking only at the 30% reduction in electricity costs is not sufficient reason to relocate the park, and looking only at carbon tariff pressure lacks a tangible technical carrier. The physically traceable dedicated supply line ties the two together.

The issue of grid structure: three approaches of dedicated line, dedicated transformer, and incremental distribution network.

There are three different implementation forms of green power direct connection in engineering, with significantly different applicable conditions. The first is a one-to-one enterprise dedicated line direct connection, where a dedicated line goes directly from the power source side to a single enterprise load side. This has the shortest physical path and the easiest traceability, but the power source and load must be matched one-to-one, and any fluctuation on either side will directly affect the other side, leaving minimal fault tolerance. The second is a one-to-many centralized energy supply in a park, where the park uniformly draws power from the grid and internally distributes it to each enterprise according to physical partitions. This requires the voltage, frequency, and power quality on the dedicated line to be stabilized by the park's energy storage configuration and dynamic reactive compensation, otherwise, the fluctuating output of renewable energy would directly affect the power quality of the park, which mainly serves manufacturing loads. The third is the nearby access of renewable energy to the incremental distribution network, where power supply is organized by the incremental distribution company within the park, with the park itself consuming energy nearby as a unified distribution grid unit, and the public network serving as a supplementary backup.

The watershed among the three approaches lies in the coupling tightness between power supply and load, and the park's control over electricity prices. Traceability is easiest with a dedicated one-to-one line, but scaling up is difficult; one-to-many centralized energy supply solves the scale problem but concentrates the pressure on power quality onto the park's energy storage configuration; the incremental distribution network model allows the park to become an independent dispatch unit, making power organization more flexible, but it places higher demands on the operational capabilities of incremental distribution companies and supporting local policies. The key technical judgment is that whether direct green power supply can work or not does not depend on how much photovoltaics the park has installed, but on whether the park has the ability to align the power fluctuation characteristics of the load with the output characteristics of the power supply in time — if industrial loads are continuously adjustable, the matching difficulty is much lower than for pulsed loads.

From the equipment side, the path of Yancheng Dafeng Port is built around the double-core green power dedicated transformer network of the 220 kV Weihai Substation and Dangui Substation, implementing two models: one-to-one direct enterprise dedicated lines and one-to-many centralized park energy supply. The goal is to promote 700,000 kW of offshore wind power directly supplying the park during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, with the traceable proportion of green power in the park reaching 60% to 80% by 2030. Public information also disclosed that the park's integrated source-grid-load-storage new power system demonstration project has built a 13.76 MW photovoltaic power station with supporting energy storage, along with the Trina Solar zero-carbon solution platform generating over 18.7 million kWh of green power annually, and it has been approved and certified by the British Standards Institution. The practical significance of such figures lies in the fact that they are verifiable hardware existences, rather than intentions in the planning scope.

Assessment: The watershed of the zero-carbon park technology route.

Looking at the three questions together, the technological path of a zero-carbon park has become quite clear. Traceability determines whether the park can serve export-oriented enterprises, the power supply structure determines whether the park can curb carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption, and the nature of the industrial load determines whether the transformation costs can be absorbed. Among the three, traceability is the easiest to underestimate. It does not produce direct carbon reductions, but once the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism enters the stage of substantial charges, it becomes the most practical difference between the park and ordinary parks—both are zero-carbon, but the market premium is completely different between those that can provide internationally recognized evidence and those that cannot.

The second judgment is strongly related to industry load. Medium-energy-consuming enterprises such as light industry, energy storage equipment, and export manufacturing respond most directly to direct green electricity connections because they require stable power supply and have clear carbon footprint disclosure pressures, making the ratio of renovation benefits to costs optimal. In contrast, the core demand of extremely high-energy-consuming heavy industrial parks is to reduce industrial electricity costs and develop emission reductions; they have no rigid need for foreign trade carbon footprint, and the premium from traceability certification is difficult to translate into benefits. Therefore, the model of coastal export-oriented parks cannot be simply copied. The actual situation of the nine parks in Shanxi illustrates this point: their carbon emissions per unit of energy consumption still range between 1.48 and 3.34 tons per ton of standard coal, with the main battlefield for renovation on the process and equipment side, while direct green electricity connection is only one of the variables.

The third consideration involves time. The construction period for the first batch of 52 national-level zero-carbon parks is 3 to 5 years, which means that the currently announced list marks the beginning of the construction period, not the achievement of the zero-carbon goal. Yancheng has set the acceptance target for Dafeng Port in 2027, which is a relatively aggressive schedule, based on the premise that four lines are advanced simultaneously: green electricity dedicated line transformation, enterprise line access, energy and carbon measurement, and carbon audit services. The actual speed of progress on these four lines is determined by the same factor—the ability of the park's energy and carbon management platform to transform measurement data into carbon audit reports that enterprises can easily use. For any park where data cannot automatically generate reports, the certification cycle will be prolonged because the marginal cost of carbon services lies not in the verification itself, but in data organization.

The references for this article are derived from the publicly released documents on zero-carbon park construction lists, indicator systems, and support program files by the People's Government of Yancheng City, the People's Government of Dafeng District, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Energy Administration, and the People's Government of Ordos City; project and data explanations publicly released by Dafeng Port Zero-Carbon Industrial Park Operations Company, Jiangsu Bulu Electric Technology Co., Ltd., Shanxi Provincial Investment Planning Research Institute, and others; as well as public reports by media such as China News Service and China Energy News.