China’s Electricity Shortage Worsens as Coal Supplies Dwindle
State Grid Corp. of China, which supplies power to more than 1 billion people, said electricity shortages have worsened because of inadequate coal supplies.
Forty-six percent of power stations supplying electricity to State Grid have coal stockpiles less than the “caution line”level of seven days’ requirement, figures from the Beijing-based power distributor show today.
State Grid’s coal inventories dropped to 31.55 million metric tons as of yesterday from 34.64 million tons three weeks ago, the company said. State Grid rationed electricity supplies in seven provinces in northern and central China yesterday, it said.
Typhoons, typical during the summer months, may disrupt deliveries of coal to coastal power plants, potentially worsening the shortage, the electricity network operator said.
Chinese authorities evacuated more than 338,000 people in the southeast in recent days as Typhoon Fung-Wong struck Fujian province with winds of 119 kilometers (74 miles) an hour.
The eye of the storm made landfall at Fuqing at 10 p.m. yesterday, the China Meteorological Administration said today on its Web site. It was downgraded to a tropical storm at midnight as it moved inland, with winds dropping to a maximum speed of 90 kilometers an hour at about 5 a.m., the agency said.
Tags: coal, electricity