China faces up to power shortage
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-06-10 10:55

Beijing used to be carefree about power supply, but may face a hard time this year.

Beijing vice-mayor Zhang Mao said Tuesday that the city, which has 59 percent of its power supply coming from other parts of the country, might impose brownouts this summer as power shortage worsens nationwide.

"Brownouts will be implemented in 24 provinces and municipalities this year, compared with 16 last year. Beijing should also join the national conservation efforts and may impose brownouts this year," he said.

An industrial report of the State Information Center forecasts China will face more severe power shortage in 2004, compared with 2003. Areas under continual brownouts will increase.

But it says the scenario would change for the better in the coming two years as power shortage would ease in 2005 and disappear in 2006.

Following widespread brownouts last year, mainly fueled by rapid growth of industrial production, the nation has acted quickly to increase power generating capacity and promote efficient power use.

More than 200 billion yuan (US$24.1 billion) of capital went to construction of power generating projects in 2003, almost equaling the amount of 2001 and 2002 combined.

Zhou Heliang, executive vice-president of the China Electrotechnical Society (CES), said that China's installed power generating capacity would experience big growth from now to 2020.

He said China had 380 million kilowatts of installed power generating capacity by the end of 2003. The level might exceed 450 million kilowatts by 2005, 650 million kilowatts by 2010 and around 950 million kilowatts by 2020.

Meanwhile, the government has taken a number of other measures to ease power shortage, including restricting power supply to enterprises that are big power consumers and big polluters, evening out peak power consumption periods and promoting efficient use of power.

A week-long nationwide campaign to educate the public about methods to save energy, sponsored by a number of government agencies, started on June 6. Among these methods, citizens are advised to unplug their electrical appliances if they would lay idle for a long period, avoiding power consumption from the standby mode.

The Municipal Government of Nanjing, East China's Jiangsu Province, has called on government offices not to turn on air conditioners when the temperature is below 32 degrees centigrade. It also invited the public to join the energy saving effort.

From mid-May, Ningbo City of east China's Zhejiang Province started to modify central air-conditioning units in 150 buildings to make them more power efficient.

Deliberations on energy efficiency in buildings have surfaced and some cities have taken steps in this direction.

Wang Guangtao, minister of Construction, said energy consumption of buildings in China is double or triple that of developed countries of comparable climate. There's much room for saving energy in this field.

Experts estimated that if new buildings and existing buildings in China all conform to advanced energy conservation standards by 2020, their energy consumption would drop by an equivalent of 335 million tons of standard coal per year, compared with doing nothing at all. That's about one fifth of China's annual energy consumption at present.

Shanghai has taken the lead in the reform. According to its plan, design and construction of new residential buildings and public buildings must comply with energy conservation standards by the end of 2005.

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