China July power output fell sharply on coal shortage
China’s power generation growth in July eased further from June to its lowest pace in over six years, official data showed on Thursday, indicating deepening supply woes that have forced nearly half the nation to ration power.
The world’s second-largest electricity user generated 319.54 billion kilowatt hours (kwh) of power last month, 8.1 percent more than a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. In June, power generation increased 8.3 percent from a year earlier.
While fast by most measures, the rise in July was far slower than the double-digit pace that has been required in recent years to feed the world’s fastest-growing major economy.
Output from thermal power plants, supplying over 80 percent of the total, rose 6.1 percent year-on-year to 251.486 billion kwh last month.
Excluding growth rates in January and February, which are usually skewed by the long Chinese New Year holiday that varies between the two months, the July output growth from thermal plants is the slowest since April 2000, according to data from Reuters EcoWin.
Nearly half of China’s provinces have been rationing power this summer, as coal-fired power plants were operating below capacity with dwindling coal stocks.
China has officially forecast a peak shortfall of 10 to 15 gigawatts in the summer, less than 2 percent of installed capacity, but provinces are forecasting quadruple that figure, rivalling that of 2004, the worst power crisis in decades.
Tags: coal, output, power