County-Level Cold Chain Green Electricity Trading Pool and Carbon Footprint Certification Value-Added Revenue Sharing

📌 Background

With the implementation of the new green electricity policies in 2026, self-generated and self-consumed green electricity is officially recognized as zero-carbon power. Coupled with surplus power grid feed-in and marketized green certificate trading, cold chain parks are shifting from simple electricity savings to green asset operations. Rooftop photovoltaic installations on county-level cold storage facilities are expanding rapidly. Green electricity and green certificates that exceed the consumption capacity of a single park require regional aggregated trading. Combined with downstream food enterprises' pressures regarding export carbon compliance, this has sparked a value-added business combining green electricity with carbon footprint certification.

👤 Target Customers

Multiple cold chain parks and cold storage owners within the region, as well as food processing and fresh produce export enterprises with carbon footprint disclosure needs

💰 Revenue Streams

1) Aggregating surplus rooftop PV power from various cold storages to enter the green electricity trading market uniformly, collecting operational commissions based on transaction volume; 2) Agency development and trading service fees for green certificates; 3) Providing carbon footprint accounting and certification services for surrounding food plants to collect annual fees, with premium value-added revenues accounting for over 10% of park revenue.

🧮 Cost Structure

Inputs for electricity trading platform integration and metering monitoring equipment, human resources for electricity traders and carbon accounting teams, hardware for cooling and electricity data collection, qualification certification, and compliance costs.

🛡️ Moat

Exclusive aggregation agreements for regional cold storage nodes and rooftop resources, long-term accumulation of green electricity and cooling data forming dispatch barriers, and first-mover advantages in government whole-county advancement and power grid interconnection approvals.

🔑 Keys to Success

• Locking in long-term lease agreements for contiguous cold storage rooftops to form regional aggregation scale
• Securing compliance qualifications across the three lines of green electricity trading, green certificates, and carbon accounting

⚠️ Risks

• Green electricity market price fluctuations leading to revenue-sharing returns falling below expectations
• Poor operation and subsequent lease termination of county-level cold storages leading to a decline in rooftop utilization rate

🏢 Cases

• The Nanyang Cold Storage Storage and Logistics New Energy 500MW Photovoltaic Project constructed 8 optical-storage-cold integration nodes across Tanghe, Sheqi, and Xinyne counties. In its third year, it packaged cold storage cooling resources into the southern Henan cold chain green electricity trading pool, providing carbon footprint certification for surrounding food plants, with premium value-added revenue accounting for 11% of total revenue.
• Sheqi County Fengyuan Cold Chain put a 3.2MW rooftop photovoltaic system into operation in July 2025. As of May 2026, it accumulated a total power generation of 18.62 million kWh, with electricity savings and green electricity trading income totaling 5.27 million RMB, achieving a payback period of 3.7 years.
• Yuhu Cold Chain Chengdu Trading Center laid 81,000 square meters of photovoltaic panels on the rooftops of 10 cold storage facilities, directly reducing park electricity costs by 14%.

📊 SWOT Analysis