By Colleen Howe
BEIJING- China’s power demand will grow faster than expected this year due to record heat waves and Beijing’s economic stimulus aimed at shoring up demand, an industry association said in its latest quarterly report.
The China Electricity Council now sees 2024 electricity consumption growing by 7 percent to 9.9 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh), according to its third-quarter report released late on Monday.
The group had forecast 6.5 percent growth to 9.82 trillion kWh in its previous report.
The new forecast would put 2024 power demand growth ahead of last year’s 6.7 percent, the group said. It also indicates electricity consumption will continue to expand faster than China’s economy, which is likely to grow 4.8 percent this year according to a Reuters poll of economists.
“Driven by high temperatures in the summer, power consumption in the first three quarters exceeded expectations,” the CEC report said, adding that peak demand reached a record high of 1.45 billion kilowatts during the summer as China logged the hottest national average temperature in 57 years.
The report also cited the economic stimulus package introduced earlier this month to shore up the country’s economy, which it said would help maintain economic growth and support power demand.
However, the CEC said power demand growth would slow to 5 percent during the fourth quarter because of a high base effect in the year-ago period.
As power demand grows, supply could be tight this winter during periods of peak demand in parts of eastern and southern China, according to the report. Power demand also normally spikes in the winter when households turn on their heaters.
Meanwhile, an enduring drought across much of the western United States has caused a drop in US hydro power generation to a 23-year low so far in 2024, data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows.
The fall in hydro generation has been somewhat overshadowed by the climb in output from renewable sources, which have helped lift total US clean power production to new highs this year.
However, reduced generation from hydro dams has limited the volume of clean power that can be dispatched on command, and has meant that power suppliers have had to deploy record volumes of natural gas balance system demand requirements.
Hydro dams, nuclear plants and geothermal sites are the main sources of so-called clean dispatchable power, or power that can be rapidly throttled up and down to balance system needs.
Natural gas and coal-fired plants are also dispatchable power sources, and are used by grid operators whenever clean power sources are not sufficient to meet system requirements. – Reuters
