China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) issued the “Provincial power grid transmission and distribution price policy for the third regulatory cycle.” Despite the less than exciting name, this may prove to be the biggest power market reform in the country since the reform of 2015 which had the slogan “control the middle (distribution) and let go of the two ends (distribution and consumption).” This reform has a similar goal for energy storage. The reform clarifies pricing levels for transmission, distribution, energy storage, and virtual power plants. The day after the NDRC announcement, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced that the participation of new energy storage capacity in the power market would be closely supervised. This means the NDRC has…