Smart grid in China: The key stakeholders, policies, regulations and challenges

China is planning to transform its traditional power grid in favour of a smart grid, since it allows a more economically efficient and a more environmentally friendly transmission and distribution of electricity. Thus, a nationwide smart grid is likely to save tremendous amounts of resources and costs. This paper elaborates on the key stakeholders, crucial polices and general challenges in the context of the Chinese smart grid development. The paper finds that the Chinese energy market is a state monopoly and foreign companies can only become key stakeholders in the role of suppliers or service providers. It can be concluded that the Chinese smart grid development has still to overcome technological and political issues, such as overlapping authority structures, not installed or immature key technologies, the absence of standards and governmental market protectionism.