National People's Congress Deputy and Trina Solar Chairman Gao Jifan: Standardize Access Criteria and Trading Mechanisms to Promote Healthy Development of Distributed Photovoltaics

People’s Financial News, March 7 — The year 2026 marks the beginning of the 14th Five-Year Plan. Gao Jifan, a deputy to the National People’s Congress and Chairman of Trina Solar, has gone deep into grassroots communities, widely gathering opinions and preparing thoroughly for the conference. He focused on technological innovation, intellectual property protection, ongoing efforts to reduce internal competition in the photovoltaic industry, and the vigorous development of new energy storage, among other topics, and put forward several suggestions.

With the in-depth implementation of the “Notice on Deepening the Market-Oriented Reform of On-Grid Electricity Prices for New Energy and Promoting High-Quality Development of New Energy,” the aggregation of distributed photovoltaic systems into the market in the form of virtual power plants has become an inevitable trend. Gao Jifan recommends further improving relevant mechanisms to promote healthy development of distributed photovoltaics.

“Standardize access criteria and trading mechanisms, and unblock institutional barriers to aggregation into the market,” Gao Jifan suggested. He proposed clarifying the status and differentiated rules for multiple entities, establishing a unified national access standard, and allowing qualified aggregators (including private enterprises) to participate in medium- and long-term, spot, and ancillary service markets on behalf of residential photovoltaic projects through virtual power plants. Under current rules, a special clause for “distributed photovoltaic aggregation trading” should be added, implementing simplified metering, monthly settlement, and annual deviation assessments. Aggregators should be allowed to bear deviation responsibilities collectively, and green certificate issuance should be centralized for projects as units.