People watch gulls from an embankment in front of offshore windmills in Binhai New Area of Tianjin. JIA JIYE/FOR CHINA DAILY

Since the launch of the national green electricity trading market in 2021, Tianjin, a port city in northern China, has seen its trade in renewable energy skyrocket from 12 million kilowatt-hours in 2021 to 17.3 billion kWh for this year. The remarkable growth has led to a dramatic cut in carbon dioxide emissions as well as toxic and harmful substances such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter.

State Grid Tianjin Electric Power Co, a subsidiary of national electricity provider State Grid, estimates the reduction is the equivalent of the amount of CO2 absorbed by 767 million trees for a whole year.

The national green electricity trading market facilitates transactions for both physical green electricity and related green electricity certificates so that large-scale users, such as manufacturers and data centers, can purchase their energy and ensure that it comes from a renewable source.

The green energy trading model used in Tianjin matches the characteristics of the city's energy mix to promote the healthy development of the green electricity market.

In its second year of operation, green electricity trading volume increased to 78 million kWh. Today, green electricity trades account for 40 percent of all commercialized electricity trades.

Jiang Yue, chairman of the board at Tianjin Power Exchange Center Co, said that green electricity in the city is mainly produced from wind power and photovoltaics.

With the development of new energy enterprises in the city over the past few years, the overall region's green electricity supply capacity has been greatly enhanced. This year, the amount of green electricity supplied by local new energy enterprises reached 5 billion kWh.

Starting from this year, green electricity producers in Gansu, Qinghai and Heilongjiang provinces, as well as those in the Xizang autonomous region have begun supplying energy to Tianjin, creating an external green electricity supply of 12.6 billion kWh.

A recent interprovincial green power transaction from Gansu to Tianjin for the period from 2025 to 2029 totaled 17.25 billion kWh, a record high transaction in Tianjin.

Jiang said the green electricity trading center has been a remarkable success.

"The price of green electricity fluctuates with supply and other factors, and the more you use, the lower the price," Jiang said.