Zhejiang Adds 456 Firms to National Carbon Market as Steel, Cement and Aluminium Complete First Compliance Cycle

Zhejiang province has enrolled 456 major industrial enterprises in China’s national carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS), officials announced at the province’s main event for National Low Carbon Day on 16 June. The covered companies together emit around 400 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent annually — roughly two-thirds of the province’s total. Crucially, the steel, cement, and aluminium smelting sectors completed their first compliance cycle in 2025, extending the market beyond power generation, which entered the national ETS at its 2021 launch.

One pioneer participant, the Changxing branch of Huaneng (Zhejiang) Energy Development Co., has achieved steady year-on-year emission reductions through targeted equipment upgrades: a redesigned cooling-tower core lifted heat-exchange efficiency by 25 percent; improved air-preheater seals cut air leakage; and optimised cooling-water management saves one million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually. The province’s decarbonisation drive now extends to coal logistics as well. A methanol-fuelled inland waterway vessel referred to as “Yuanchun 001”completed a trial voyage on the Taicang–Changxing coal route, reportedly saving 78,000 litres of diesel a year while cutting pollutant emissions by more than 98 percent. A previously commissioned 2,000-tonne fully electric coal barge saves 100,000 litres of fuel annually and runs at one-fifth the operating cost of a conventional diesel vessel.

Zhejiang’s provincial ecological and environmental authority sees scope for considerably deeper cuts: oxygen-enriched combustion and waste-heat recovery could reduce average per-tonne steel-sector emissions by a further 5 percent, while feedstock optimisation and carbon-capture deployment could lower carbon intensity per unit of industrial output in the petrochemical and chemical industries by 20 percent. Over China’s 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026–2030), Zhejiang plans to drive its carbon-market enterprises to implement more than 500 emission-reduction projects, targeting a cumulative cut of over 16 million tonnes and pushing per-unit product carbon intensity toward industry-leading levels. The provincial government is backing the effort with a dedicated science-and-technology programme — dubbed “Dual Carbon Leading Beautiful Blue Sky” — and expanded credit support for low-carbon investment.