Industrial energy use drops in April

China's industrial electricity consumption in April dropped 1 percent compared to the previous month, according to data from the National Energy Administration.

This is the first monthly decrease since September.

Industrial power consumption in April was 308.3 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), up 7.66 percent year-on-year. A kWh is a unit of energy equal to 1,000 watt hours.

However, the daily power consumption during workdays in April dropped by 2.4 percent compared to the same period last year.

China consumed 1.63 trillion kWh in the first four months, up 4.9 percent.