China's push to integrate power, carbon and computing is moving from concept to practice, with pilot projects, new standards and policy measures taking shape across the country.

The Taiyuan Energy and Low Carbon Development Forum in September 2026 set up a "power-carbon-computing coordinated development forum" for the first time, drawing more than 200 experts to discuss coordinated management of power, carbon and computing elements.

Liu Zhenmin, China's special envoy for climate change affairs, attended and addressed the forum. In the same month, Qian Chaoyang, chairman of China Southern Power Grid, held talks with Baidu founder Robin Li, explicitly proposing deeper cooperation in areas including power-carbon-computing coordination.

Months earlier, Guangdong's data center cluster completed its first cross-provincial "point-to-point" green power delivery, with wind and solar power from Yunnan and Guangxi transmitted to data centers in Guangdong and Hainan.

In 2023, the National Development and Reform Commission and four other departments first proposed a "computing-power coordination mechanism" in their implementation guidelines for the "East Data, West Computing" initiative. In 2026, the Government Work Report further incorporated "computing-power coordination" into the deployment of new infrastructure projects.

In April 2026, the National Energy Administration, together with the NDRC, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Data Administration, issued an action plan to promote two-way empowerment between artificial intelligence and energy, outlining 29 key tasks.

The plan calls for significantly enhanced interaction between clean energy and computing facilities by 2027, and a development framework deeply integrating AI and energy by 2030.

Notably, the action plan has expanded beyond computing-power coordination to include green and low-carbon transformation of computing facilities and carbon emission management, signaling that constraints on the computing industry are extending from power supply alone to carbon emissions.

The shift in constraints is first reflected at the measurement level. The power-carbon factor methodology has evolved through four generations — from annual regional averages to marginal factors, then to network carbon flow allocation and data-driven spatiotemporal dynamics.

However, carbon flow tracking at the distribution network level still faces obstacles including inconsistent factor standards, insufficient measurement data and disputes over network loss allocation.

A standard issued by the Chinese Society for Electrical Engineering at the end of 2025 and implemented in March 2026 — guidelines for calculating time-of-use, zonal electricity carbon emission factors — aims to provide unified technical specifications for this measurement challenge.

At the regulation level, the National Energy Administration's action plan proposes using electricity market price signals to guide computing facilities in optimizing energy management and cross-grid, cross-regional scheduling, and encourages computing facilities to participate in grid operations as flexible, adjustable load-side resources.

Guangdong's practice offers a preliminary example: data centers aggregate flexible computing loads through virtual power plant platforms, shifting peaks and filling valleys based on spot market price signals, achieving "computing follows power dispatch."

Electricity consumption data from Shanxi province directly reflects the growth trend of computing loads. Data released by the Shanxi provincial government shows that during the 14th "Five-Year Plan" period, electricity consumption in Shanxi's internet data services industry grew 27.7-fold, with an average annual growth rate of 94%.

In January-July 2026, the increment accounted for more than half of the province's total electricity consumption growth. A report released by State Grid Shanxi Electric Power Co., Ltd. shows that as of December 2024, electricity consumption in Shanxi's internet data services industry had exceeded 4 TWh, up 58% year on year. The rapid rise of computing loads has made power-carbon-computing coordination a pressing reality in energy base provinces like Shanxi.

In the green computing certification segment, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and four other departments launched a national green computing facility recommendation program this month. T

he evaluation indicators, building on traditional metrics such as PUE and the share of renewable energy electricity, newly incorporate carbon utilization efficiency, digital carbon management and product carbon footprint requirements. However, bottlenecks remain at the end of the value chain.

Data centers primarily procure green power through green power trading, green certificate trading and direct green power connections.

However, insufficient linkage between green certificates and the carbon market means data centers purchasing green certificates struggle to fully demonstrate emission reduction responsibility, dampening corporate enthusiasm for buying green certificates.

In June 2026, multiple departments jointly issued trial guidelines for accounting non-fossil energy electricity consumption, clarifying specific methods for incorporating green certificates into carbon emission accounting.

But according to a previous policy interpretation by the National Energy Administration, a unified methodological standard has yet to be established between carbon market allowance accounting and green power consumption accounting. Companies participating in both carbon market compliance and green power consumption assessments still face challenges including double counting or unclear offset rules.

From "access to affordable power" to "proving the green attributes of power," the competitive dimensions of the computing industry are being restructured.

Time-of-use, zonal power-carbon factors provide a quantitative tool, cross-provincial green power trading has opened physical channels, and green computing certification has established evaluation standards. But the mechanism linking carbon footprint accounting with green certificates is still being refined.