Zhejiang's Huangdu Achieves Full Coverage of “Green Electricity” in Tea Production

“With this certificate, we will be able to attach a green electricity certification label to our tea packaging. Every time consumers open the package, they’ll see that every kilowatt-hour of electricity used in tea processing is sourced from green energy. This can further highlight the green credentials of Anji white tea,” said Xue Yong, the head of Anji Yashe Qinghe Tea Co., Ltd., on March 25. He made these remarks while receiving the green electricity certificate from Guo Tao, a carbon efficiency service engineer at the State Grid Anji County Power Supply Company.

A carbon efficiency service engineer at the State Grid Anji County Power Supply Company

presents the green electricity certificate to a tea enterprise representative

Photo by Dong Zhenmao

Huangdu Village in Anji County, with 325 households engaged in tea cultivation and management, is known as “China’s No. 1 White Tea Village.” The village has 12,000 mu (about 800 hectares) of tea plantations, producing over 200 tons of dried tea annually. This year, Anji County launched an initiative to promote low-carbon development in Anji white tea.

Ahead of the first spring tea harvest, the State Grid Anji County Power Supply Company and the Anji County Agriculture and Rural Affairs Bureau actively promoted the use of green electricity in electric tea processing. They commissioned the State Grid Huzhou Comprehensive Energy Company to facilitate green certificate transactions for the core white tea production area in Huangdu Village. As a result, local tea farmers and enterprises collectively purchased 2.72 million kilowatt-hours of green electricity. Since then, clean wind power from Xinjiang has been steadily supplied to Huangdu Village, ensuring the entire village uses green electricity for tea processing.

A tea farmer is using a semi-automatic electric tea roaster to process tea leaves

Photo by Dong Zhenmao

This initiative exemplifies how electricity supports Anji County in becoming one of China's first pilot counties for the rural energy revolution. So far, all 28 tea enterprises and 297 tea farmers in Huangdu Village have completed green electricity certificate transactions, achieving full green electricity coverage for the entire tea processing chain—from spreading and fixation to shaping and drying. Each green certificate corresponds to 1 megawatt-hour of green electricity.

Statistics show that during this year's spring tea season, Huangdu Village collectively traded 2,717 green certificates, equivalent to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 2,228 tons. In the next phase, the State Grid Anji County Power Supply Company will build on this initiative, aiming to extend green electricity coverage to all electric tea processing activities across the county and gradually expand it to other rural specialty industries, including office chair manufacturing and bamboo product processing. (Written by Zhao Yanlong, Yuan Fengyue, Zhang Meng)