OREANDA-NEWS. The total power consumption growth rate in the first half year fell slightly, related with the base data and the overall economy, as well as the energy saving and emission reduction effects. The power consumption may grow rapidly in the peak summer and the growth rate is expected to rise in the third quarter.

The first half year’s total power consumption was 2496.1TWh, released by the National Energy Administration on July 14, with a year-on-year increase of 5.1%. But the growth rate decreased by 0.4 percentage points than the same period of last year.

Professor Lin Boqiang, Director of China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, said that the first half year’s total power consumption increased slightly than last year, but the growth rate fell a little bit. The result was not only affected by the base data, but also related with the overall economy.

From January to May this year, the industrial added value of enterprises above designated size increased by 9.4% than the same period of last year, but the growth rate decreased by 1.3 percentage points. "Industry is the main power consumer of our country. From the perspective of industrial added value growth rate, the first half year’s total power consumption growth rate fell slightly, but was still within the expectation. Do not worry too much," said Lin Boqiang.

Meanwhile, the slow growth was also affected by the energy saving and emission reduction. From the data released by the National Development and Reform Commission on July 10, in the first half, the energy consumption per GDP decreased compared with the same period of last year. Among them, the added value of chemical industry, building materials, nonferrous metals and power industry respectively increased by 11.9%, 11.5%, 13.0% and 4.0%, but the growth rate decreased by 0.1, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.5 percentage points respectively over the same period of last year; the growth rate of investment on chemical, building materials, steel and power fell 17.8, 4.3, 3.9 and 10.4 percentage points over the same period of last year.

The slow growth in high energy-consuming industry reflects our country’s success in the economic structure adjustment and energy saving and emission reduction, thus slowing down the growth in total social power consumption, especially in heavy industry.
In the first six months, the primary industry’s power consumption was 46.1TWh with a year-on-year decrease of 0.8%; the secondary industry consumed 1841.9TWh of power with a year-on-year increase of 4.9% and a rising growth rate of 1.2 percentage points; the tertiary industry used 292.5TWh of electricity with a year-on-year increase of 9.3% and a falling growth rate of 2.8 percentage points; and the urban and rural residential power consumption was 315.6TWh, with a year-on-year increase of 3.9%.

In the secondary industry, power consumption in the whole industry, heavy industry and light industry was both higher than last year, indicating that the overall industry was stable. From the horizontal comparison, the light industry power consumption growth rate was only 0.1 points higher than the heavy industry. But the heavy industry still develops faster than the light industry, when taking the large electricity consumption base into consideration.

Industrial economy operation also showed that, at present, there was a trend of heavilization in China's industry structure. In the first five months, the added value of light and heavy industry grew 8.5% and 9.7% respectively, which showed that the growing speed of heavy industry was 1.2 percentage points higher than that of light industry. It may bring some pressure and resistance on promoting economy structural adjustment and energy saving and emission reduction.

The growth rate of the tertiary industry was significantly lower than last year, but 9.3% increase was still within the normal range, indicating an overall stable development of the service-led tertiary industry. It was a highlight of the first half year’s economy development and structural adjustment.

In the first half year, the average utilization hours of hydropower equipment was 1,532, increasing by 76 hours; that of thermal power equipment was 2412 hours, decreasing by 83 hours. The main reasons are the abundant runoff of hydropower plants and the optimized power structure.

Predicted by China Electricity Council, this year’s total power consumption will be between 5,280TWh to 5,380TWh, with a year-on-year increase of 6.5% to 8.5%. Experts believe that the peak summer time will drive the power consumption growing rapidly. In the third quarter, the growth rate of the total social power consumption is expected to rise. However, Lin Boqiang said that, if no new stimulating policies, China's macroeconomic growth is unlikely to recover significantly and the power consumption growth will still be gentle.