On August 5, 2026, the National Energy Administration officially released the "Guiding Opinions on Accelerating the Development of Virtual Power Plants" (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), proposing that by 2027, the peak regulation capacity of virtual power plants nationwide will reach 50 million kilowatts, and by 2030, it will exceed 100 million kilowatts. This marks the formal entry of virtual power plants from small-scale pilot projects to the stage of large-scale application, adding a new growth engine to the energy dividend period.
Summer Peak Demand Response Practical Verification: Virtual Power Plants Moving from Concept to Essential Need
Since this summer, many parts of the country have experienced extreme high temperatures, with grid loads repeatedly hitting historical records. In late July in the East China region, the Suzhou Industrial Park Virtual Power Plant aggregated adjustable loads, user-side energy storage, and distributed photovoltaics from more than 1,200 enterprises in the park, releasing a regulation capacity of 360,000 kilowatts at the touch of a button during evening peak hours, equivalent to the output of a medium-sized thermal power plant, completing the grid dispatch instruction in just 5 minutes.
Similar scenarios have been intensively staged in Guangdong, Hebei, Shandong and other places. According to data from the State Grid, in July 2026, virtual power plants nationwide cumulatively participated in electricity auxiliary service market transactions with 4.2 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, a year-on-year increase of over 300%. Virtual power plants are no longer just a concept in PowerPoint presentations but have become a rigid demand for power supply security and new energy consumption.
Policy Dividends Released in Concentration, Virtual Power Plants Accelerating Comprehensively
The introduction of the "Opinions" is the most systematic and heavyweight policy deployment at the national level for virtual power plants following the revision of the "Power Demand Side Management Measures" in 2025. The "Opinions" for the first time clarify the independent market entity status of virtual power plants, allowing them to participate in electricity spot markets, auxiliary service markets, and capacity markets, and encouraging social capital to invest in construction and operation.
At the local level, as of the end of July 2026, 23 provinces have already implemented detailed rules or supporting policies for virtual power plants. Among them, Guangdong Province proposes to build a virtual power plant regulation capacity of 3 million kilowatts by the end of 2026, aiming to become the first virtual power plant application demonstration province in the country; Shandong Province has incorporated virtual power plants into electricity market trading entities, implementing a "daily settlement, monthly clearing" settlement mechanism.
The industry generally believes that the policy combination is breaking through the "last mile" of virtual power plant development—business models. In the past, virtual power plants relied on government subsidies. Now, through diversified income sources such as peak-valley price arbitrage, auxiliary service compensation, and capacity leasing, some leading projects have achieved a full investment internal rate of return (IRR) exceeding 12%.
AI + Energy Storage Dual-Drive, Technical Bottlenecks Accelerating Breakthrough
The core of virtual power plants lies in "aggregation" and "dispatch." The biggest challenge that constrained their development in the past was the difficulty of real-time perception and control of massive distributed resources. However, with the explosion of AI large model technology, this bottleneck is rapidly being broken.
In Shenzhen, a certain technology company's "Lingxi" virtual power plant cloud platform introduces large language models and reinforcement learning algorithms, capable of millisecond-level response decisions for more than 100,000 distributed energy storage, charging piles, and air conditioning loads. The system automatically optimizes charge and discharge strategies by predicting electricity prices and load curves, reducing the annual electricity bill of a single commercial building by 18%-25% while ensuring user comfort.
At the same time, the rapid popularization of user-side energy storage provides more flexible regulation resources for virtual power plants. According to data from the High-Industry Research Institute, in the first half of 2026, new user-side energy storage installations in China reached 8.7GWh, a year-on-year increase of 245%. Massive distributed energy storage is being aggregated through virtual power plants, forming a huge "cloud power plant."
New Track in the Energy Dividend Period: Billion-Dollar Market Accelerating Opening
From an investment perspective, virtual power plants are considered one of the most promising tracks in the digital transformation of energy. A CITIC Securities research report points out that in 2026, China's virtual power plant market size is expected to exceed 60 billion yuan, and by 2030, it will exceed 300 billion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 38%, significantly higher than the traditional power equipment industry.
Investment opportunities in the industrial chain are distributed at three levels:
- Platform Layer: Virtual power plant software and operation service providers, such as Yunzhihui Technology and Juhui Energy, whose core barriers lie in AI algorithms and resource aggregation capabilities.
- Equipment Layer: Smart metering terminals, edge computing gateways, adjustable load controllers and other hardware manufacturers, benefiting from the increased penetration of virtual power plant terminals.
- Resource Layer: Comprehensive energy service providers with large amounts of distributed photovoltaic, energy storage, and charging pile resources, as well as third-party aggregation operators.
Notably, the virtual power plant business model is deeply integrated with electricity marketization reform. With the basic realization of full coverage of electricity spot markets nationwide in 2026, the fluctuation of spot prices will further expand the arbitrage space for virtual power plants. In addition, the linkage between green power trading, carbon markets, and virtual power plants is also creating new value points.
Challenges Remain: Lack of Standards and Profitability Stability to be Resolved
Despite the broad prospects, the development of virtual power plants is not without challenges. The industry currently has three major pain points: first, unified technical standards have not yet been introduced, communication protocols and interfaces of different manufacturers are not interoperable, leading to high aggregation costs; second, spot market rules are still evolving, and capacity compensation mechanisms in some provinces have not been implemented, making profit models highly dependent on policies; third, the response enthusiasm of user-side resources still needs to be cultivated, and many industrial and commercial users have a weak perception of the benefits of participating in virtual power plants.
Many industry experts interviewed stated that with the implementation of the "Opinions" and the formulation of national standards, the above problems will be gradually solved. Virtual power plants are essentially a deep integration of the power system and the digital economy. Their explosion is not only an inevitable product of the energy dividend period but also a core support for the construction of a new-type power system.
Outlook: The Next Decade of the Energy Dividend Period
Looking back from the time point of August 2026, the energy dividend period is moving from the "installation scale era" to the "flexible regulation era." As the penetration rate of wind and solar power continues to rise, the demand for regulation resources in the power grid is growing exponentially. As the most economical and green regulation method, virtual power plants are becoming the next trillion-dollar track in the energy revolution.
As emphasized in the "Opinions," virtual power plants are an important starting point for building a new-type power system and a key measure to promote new energy consumption and ensure power security. Under the multiple resonance of policy, technology, and market, virtual power plants have already drawn a thick stroke on the gold mining map of the energy dividend period.
