(Yicai) Aug. 10 -- Shares of Chinese service providers of virtual power plants rose after the country opened its first provincial-level center to manage cloud-based power plants that help balance the supply of electricity.

Gisway Information Technology [SHE: 301390] gained 4.5 percent to CNY50.48 (USD7). Meanwhile, Smartgen Zhengzhou Technology's shares [SHE: 301361] rose by 4.1 percent to CNY26.04 whereas Jilin Jinguan Electric [SHE: 300510] moved up 2.9 percent to close at CNY6.85 (USD1).

The southern city of Haikou started operating the first VPP hub in Hainan province yesterday, Shanghai Securities News reported. VPPs aggregate idle electric resources from users' vehicle charging piles, energy storage devices, air conditioning equipment, and solar panels to return energy back to the grid to stabilize the power supply.

The new center, which is linked to the Hainan unit of China Southern Power Grid, will operate a platform to manage the province's VPPs, connecting them to power load aggregators. 

The platform will be linked to battery charging and swap stations, base stations of fifth-generation wireless networks, and air conditioning resources, forming a total installed capacity of 500,000 kilowatts, close to that of a large power plant. By 2025, the center is expected to be linked to at least one million kW of capacity to increase efficiency and ensure energy safety.

VPP markets are expected to grow due to extreme weather conditions and tighter power supply, Huafu Securities said in a research note earlier. Investments in VPPs are predicted to range from CNY33 billion to CNY55 billion (USD4.6 billion to USD7.7 billion) by 2025 and the market is expected to reach a scale of CNY10 billion. 

Editor: Emmi Laine