Such wide scale deployment of infrastructure has to only come with vast investment and efficient planning mechanisms. While sometimes controversial due to limited local consultation and rapid displacements, their utilitarian attitude to planning has shown benefits in speed of deployment. With 1.4 billion people relying on the state to deliver infrastructure, the needs of the few are often not allowed to outweigh those of the many - so the philosophy goes. Reasonable effort is used to compensate and relocate those affected, though the way this is done does still need working on.
In short, their model is that the land belongs to the “whole people”, and thus the general direction is to build for connectivity and equal prosperity. Planning times are therefore significantly reduced as bureaucracy is kept minimal by the state and a design through risk management approach is used to minimise overdesign.
Consequently, this has enabled developments such as high-speed rail connectivity, which has sprawled across China’s key population hubs in the last 12 years, and grid scale nuclear being deployed in under 6 years, where the world average is 9.8 (Forbes, 2023). Underpinning all this is political certainty, something that helps reduce long term risk for investors. When President Xi sets out his 5-year plans and long-term targets for core infrastructure, there is high confidence that the majority of those targets will be met before or on schedule. Most domestic investors use this certainty to think about their returns in the long term rather than focussing on near term losses. I guess this can be said to align well with a socialist investment philosophy which looks to prioritise economic social welfare.
The recent successful performance of these 5-year plans has also been something that has caught the eye of many internationally, with analysts now estimating over $540bn of Chinese bonds being now held by foreign investors and is expected to grow (Allianz GI, 2025). We generally don't see enough of this type of long-term investor behaviour in Western democracies because political uncertainty and electoral cycles fundamentally change how capital risk is perceived.
If we had to learn anything though, it would be that cross-party consistency and common consensus on policy is really what needs to happen in countries such as the UK. Stick to the plan and streamline the bureaucracy. Our eastern counterparts would probably look at the management of projects such as HS2 and turn their heads away stunned.
The other factor about this is that there needs to be a propensity to continue building. This is how you maintain a skilled native workforce and keep your learning curve as shallow as possible. Take Hinkley Point C for example which was 6 years delayed and $28bn over budget. A part of this cost was that EDF had to train a new generation of welders from scratch as the UK simply didn’t have the technical skills force in place (IMechE, 2015). It is critical for policy makers to understand this concept of continuation, especially if we seek to rapidly deploy more generation and critical infrastructure assets to deliver long term prosperity and meet our 2050 Net Zero Targets.
Let’s set some context. China's electricity grid has been developing for years, mainly as provincial level independent grids. But in 2002, state national reform undertook a massive consolidation effort, unifying many of the grids. This created some of the largest power networks across Asia and saw the establishment of the Chinese State Grid Corporation and the China Southern Power Grid - the two biggest synchronous AC grids in the country.
So why did this matter to China? Well not only did it foster a greater level of interconnectedness, but it spurred on a gradual increase in cross provincial power trades. This facilitated western and northern hydro-power and renewable generators (yes - as well as coal plants) to be connected to Eastern demand centres. These demand centres typically house the dense urban cities and manufacturing hubs that power China's behemoth national and international trade.
There are a couple of features of these two large grids which are unique, compared to our UK system:
1) The grids are run by state backed / nationalised not-for-profit entities that manage both operations and transmission of power.
2) The distances between supply and demand points can reach up to 3300 km (NS Energy, 2020). At these distances AC stops making sense due to higher costs and larger losses. China has pioneered Ultra High Voltage DC Cables rated at ± 800kV and above, to transmit power across such long distances.
3) Most power produced is consumed domestically, and very little is traded cross border with other nations. In comparison to the UK, we import up to 20% of our power to meet peak demand periods (Drax Electricity Insights, 2024).
A lot has happened since 2002. In 2018, Guangdong opened the first power exchange to host a spot market in southern China, essentially liberalising the market in the province. The exchange, again state backed, operates as a not-for-profit and just recently facilitated over 129bn kWh in green power trades in Q1 2025 (macexx, 2025). One key feature of the power exchange is that its market follows a nodal pricing structure. Operating with locational pricing, unlike our national pricing system in the UK, has helped drive down system level costs for users. This is through increased bidding competition between generators and locating demand and supply in consideration of physical network constraints. Retail prices have now reached about 5-7p/kWh, about 25% of the cost of electricity in the UK.
The scheme has been so successful that it has even rolled out to the rest of the China Southern Power Grid in 2022. Adoption has been quick and new market reforms in June ensured all new IPPs and state generators now participate via their long-cycle spot market which is settled in hourly periods. In addition to this, ToU tariffs for EVs and accommodation for VPPs and aggregators are now being facilitated, despite the latter still being in its infancy.
Now unlike key UK registries, the new power exchanges have also focussed on offering fair price discovery and traceability when it comes to renewable certificates (the thing that verifies your electricity is "green"). This has annoyingly been one of my biggest pet peeves of the opaque UK REGO/EAC market, as Ofgem’s aged 20-year-old registry system hasn’t kept up with market need or power technology reform. China revitalised their system with blockchain integrations that now facilitate trades of granular GECs, which have recently seen significant trading volume in the south-east. This is due to manufacturers seeking compliance with the developing Carbon Border Adjust Mechanism (CBAM) requirements in the EU (Granular Certificates, 2025).
Okay, so the electricity market is booming, system costs are coming down, and traceability of emissions and production has also drastically improved. However, at a local level, are people even feeling the benefit? Now it's quite hard to say for the whole country, but if you take a high-speed train out of Guangzhou you will be engulfed by a network of towering metal and wooden pylons that decorate the rolling landscape. Every community you will see is connected to the grid and follows suit to the fact that China reached 100% universal electricity access in 2013 (World Bank,2025), an important milestone for the ruling CCP. With electricity comes EVs, and it’s no surprise that with low electricity costs and agile tariffs for charging, NEVs market share in June reached over 44% in China (Carbon Brief, 2025).
Now, new technical challenges remain such as managing frequency control, negative power pricing, and renewable integration challenges. But watching this development unfold firsthand, what becomes clear is that China isn't just building an electricity system - they're architecting the backbone of an entirely new economy. The real question isn't whether they'll solve these grid puzzles, it's what happens when a fifth of the world's population has access to this kind of energy infrastructure, while the rest of us are likely still arguing internally about planning permits.
China’s electricity infrastructure uphaul has unleashed something wild in the economic evolution of the EV space. With cheap ToU tariffs and low electricity costs, BEV adoption has never been more economical for users, prompting a flood of new car manufacturers to meet this demand. However, only 129 out of the initial 400 EV companies still survive in an ongoing market stampede, creating the most cutthroat automotive battleground the world has seen. These car companies act almost like tech gladiators fighting with everything from revolutionary dynamic fast chargers to AI-powered interiors that feel like stepping into the future. Competition is so fierce that innovation cycles must happen in months, not years.
To understand this better, I visited the factory of one such EV manufacturer, GAC Aion. Now Aion is the 7th bestselling EV company in China (EV Drive, 2025) and one of the few companies growing their international presence through SE Asia and Europe. The visit was eye opening. Not only did I get to witness some of the state-of-the-art developments in solid state batteries, which could drastically boost range up to 1500km, but also get to dissect their entire business model. Like most Chinese EV manufacturers, the fierce domestic competition has forced Aion to keep prices brutally competitive, crushing profit margins. This financial pressure is beyond real; especially as most of these companies are now carrying debt ratios above 70% (EV,2025). I would therefore not be surprised if there would be further serious market consolidation to large players like BYD or Xiaomi, who are rapidly expanding internationally.
Now, here is a lesson for policymakers. Whatever the technology, a fine balance is needed; competition policy must balance innovation incentives with industry viability, or risk hollowing out the sectors they're trying to strengthen. Market Darwinism and weaponised competition will come at the expense of creating a financially sustainable and equitable market.
China is growing rapidly, and for those who remain sceptical about their development quality I would highly recommend a trip to see what the fuss is about. I was left feeling impressed and surprisingly inspired! With such strong currency and market control, the government has been able to remain efficient in deploying infrastructure, developing key markets fast, and innovating in ways that have serious technological implications on how we can scale to a more sustainable future. Specifically in Infrastructure, western policy makers should take note how China has maintained such low learning curves for new technology, fostered stability in political consensus and kept project development efficient and as frictionless as possible. If the squabbling in our parliament settles down to some unity, we may finally see some genuine infrastructure enabled growth that won’t take a quarter of my lifetime to come to market.
With regards to electricity markets and power trading, it’s not quite as easy for the UK to just change its system, but there is hope that REMA will enable lower costs, less gas dependency and enhanced flexibility services that better grid management. China has benefited from building almost their entire grid with the latest technology, whereas the UK grid is now over 90 years old. So, a unique solution is needed. But what we can take from their development story is that positive market reform can accommodate wholesale system changes if staged logically. Stakeholders must have certainty and perceive system value to participate. What’s left is just a matter of being able to consistently see strong policy action through!