Vulnerability and Sustainable Development Strategy of the Power Industry Under Carbon Market Based on Social Network Analysis Perspective

Under the carbon market regulation, the power industry carbon trading (PICT) is still facing severe challenges, which seriously restrict the low-carbon transition of the power industry and carbon market stability. This paper innovatively introduces vulnerability research into PICT exploration and identifies stakeholders and vulnerabilities based on the whole PICT process. A social network analysis (SNA) is used to construct the PICT vulnerability network, and the key vulnerability nodes and their interactions are quantitatively analyzed to reveal the vulnerability formation mechanism. The findings suggest that PICT vulnerabilities are multi-dimensional, complex, and highly systemic, while policy formulation, the market trading mechanism, and the regulatory system are the core factors influencing the stable operation. At the same time, vulnerability propagation shows subject correlation and multilevel transmission effects, and different stakeholders play different roles in vulnerability propagation. On this basis, this paper proposes a four-dimensional vulnerability mitigation system centered on policy, market, regulation, and synergy, and quantitatively evaluates the effectiveness of the strategy through network simulation analysis. The conclusions enrich the theoretical study of PICT vulnerability and also provide strong decision support for regulating stakeholders’ market behavior and enhancing the stability of the carbon trading market.