China's energy legal construction has reached an important milestone. On November 8, the 12th meeting of the Standing Committee of the 14th National People's Congress voted to adopt the Energy Law of the People's Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the Energy Law). The law consists of nine chapters, mainly including general provisions, energy planning, energy development and utilization, energy market system, energy storage and emergency response, energy technology innovation, supervision and management, liability and supplementary provisions. It will come into effect on January 1, 2025.(Click here to read the full text of the Energy Law) As the world's largest producer and consumer of energy, China has long lacked a fundamental and overarching law in the field of energy. The drafting work of the Energy Law began in 2006, with several versions of draft for public consultation published and three revisions made. The Energy Law adopted this time will fill this legislative gap, which is of great and far-reaching significance for further consolidating the legal foundation in the field of energy, ensuring national energy security, and promoting green and low-carbon transformation.

In terms of energy storage, the Energy Law points out that the state should rationally layout and actively orderly develop and construct pumped storage power stations, promote high-quality development of new energy storage, and play a regulatory role for various types of storage in the power system.

In terms of the development and utilization of energy, the Energy Law emphasizes the development and utilization of renewable energy, and points out to promote users' active participation in energy demand response, expand green energy consumption, guide energy users to reasonably adjust their energy use methods, time, quantity, etc. through improving tiered pricing, time-of-use pricing and other systems, to promote energy conservation and improve energy efficiency:

The state supports the priority development and utilization of renewable energy, rational development and clean and efficient use of fossil energy, promotes the safe, reliable and orderly substitution of non-fossil energy for fossil energy, and increases the share of non-fossil energy consumption.

The state improves the mechanism for ensuring the consumption of electricity from renewable energy sources. Power supply enterprises, power selling companies, relevant power users and enterprises using self-contained power plants for power supply shall undertake the responsibility for consuming the generated electricity from renewable energy according to the relevant provisions of the state.

The state promotes the development and utilization of wind and solar energy, adhering to both centralized and decentralized approaches, accelerating the construction of wind and photovoltaic power bases, supporting the local development and utilization of distributed wind and photovoltaic power, developing offshore wind power in an orderly manner, and actively developing concentrated solar thermal power generation.

The state accelerates the construction of a new power system, strengthening the coordinated construction of power sources and grids, promoting the intelligent transformation of grid infrastructure and the construction of smart microgrids, and enhancing the ability of grids to accept, configure, and regulate renewable energy.

The Energy Law is a concentrated manifestation in legal form of China's long-term energy strategy and major policies, serving as a declaration in legal form to promote the green low-carbon transformation of energy and ensure a high level of energy security. At the same time, the Energy Law clarifies the responsibilities and authorities of energy management departments, defines the rights of various related entities in the field of energy, leads a new model of specialized field legislation, and greatly promotes the research and development of energy law.

Chen Xinghua, Secretary-General of the Energy Law Research Association under the China Society of Law Studies, Associate Professor at Beiyang University of Technology, and Director of the Energy Law Research Center, stated that The Energy Law perfectly aligns with the concept of field law proposed by the legal community in recent years, which goes beyond the constraints of traditional departmental laws and leads our country's new type of legislative model. Its enactment should be regarded as a significant achievement in the rule of law. From the impact on the energy industry, on one hand, as the basic energy law, it has improved China's energy legal system and provided stronger legal safeguards for the development of energy governance. On the other hand, it has an irreplaceable legal declaration function for important matters such as national energy security and energy transformation. At the same time, The Energy Law, through legal form, affirms the achievements of energy transformation and energy system reform, and is even more a legal path answer sheet to help achieve carbon peaking and carbon neutrality goals in the energy field.

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