A step towards market pricing

Setting no time target for implementing its new scheme, Beijing issued directives on letting markets have a role in setting wholesale and retail power tariffs, replacing current practice, which lets local authorities set them. But the government will still set a fixed, "capacity" tariff, while a "volume tariff" on top of that will be determined from bids linked to coal prices by power plants. The South China Morning Post explained it this way: "Wholesale tariffs" charged by grid operators "will be determined by the government before being given over to market forces."