China's power consumption is expected to reach 7.33-7.48 trillion kilowatt hour (KWh) in 2020, an increase of 1.5% to 3.5% from 2019's consumption, factoring in coronavirus, financial policies, the switch of "coal-to-power" for winter heating, according to a report issued by State Grid Energy Research Institute.
Zhang Yunzhou, leader of the institute, said power consumption in the second half of 2020 will post a year-on-year growth of 7% or so, bringing the whole year's growth to about 3%.
Wu Shanshan, director of the institute's macroeconomic research office, expected the growth in the second, third and fourth quarters this year to reach 3.5%, 7.1% and 6.8%, respectively.
The negative impact of the coronavirus mainly focused in the first half, hitting power consumption heavily with a decline of 6.5% in the first quarter; the impact would taper off in the second half while the effect of economic policies is beginning to take into force, helping a quick recovery in power use, Wu said.
In terms of industries, the tertiary industry – mainly services sectors –was most exposed to the Covid-19 epidemic, but are on track to take a quick recovery in the third and fourth quarters, driving the power consumption into a 2.9% rise for the whole year.
Electricity consumption of the secondary industry – mainly industrial sectors – has shown an accelerated recovery in the second quarter. The growth would continue to rise in the second half due to the significant effect of various incentive policies. It is expected that the annual growth will be about 2.1%.
In addition, the report predicted there would be 130 GW of capacity to be newly commissioned in 2020, a 29.8% rise year on year, taking the total capacity to 2.13 TW, a 6.1% rise, which included 0.9 TW of non-fossil energy, accounting for 42.1% of total.
(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Tammy Yang)
For any questions, please contact us by inquiry@fwenergy.com or +86-351-7219322.