China’s power use drops by 5.5%

Electricity consumption in the first half fell to 2.38 trillion kilowatt hours on account of the weak Chinese economy.

The China Electricity Council (CEC) said there was a significant decline in power use by industrial and high energy-consuming industries. It projects the full year power consumption to fall between 4.98 trillion kWh and 5.03 trillion kWh, an increase of 6% to 7% year-on-year.

Due to decreasing thermal power generation, China’s new power generation capacity fell by 8.92 million kilowatts from a year earlier to 25.85 million kilowatts in the first half,

Because of the ongoing economic slowdown, investment growth in the power sector slowed to 2.3% in the first six months as investment in developing wind, thermal and nuclear power dropped, according to CEC.

CEC, however, projects total power consumption to grow between 6% and 8% year-on-year to hit between 2.6 trillion kWh and 2.65 trillion kWh in the second half. A greater chance of economic growth picking up over the second half means power demand is likely to rebound in subsequent months.

China’s installed power-generating capacity continued to expand, with facilities with a power output of over 6,000 kilowatts supporting a total of 1.05 billion kilowatts in power generation in June, up 8.7% from a year earlier.