China's power consumption in 2020 increased 3.1% on the year, as the growth driven by strong economy growth and higher-than-usual winter household heating more than offset the decline during the coronavirus outbreak in early months.
China's power consumption totaled 7,511 TWh in 2020, showed data from the National Energy Administration on January 19.
The primary industry – mainly the agriculture sector – consumed 85.9 TWh of power in 2020, up 10.2% year on year; the secondary industry – mainly the industrial sector – used 5,121.5 TWh of power, up 2.5%; consumption by the tertiary industry – mainly service sector – increased 1.9% to 1,208.7 TWh; households' consumption rose 6.9% to 1,094.9 TWh.
As a barometer of economic growth, the power consumption growth reflected China's economic recovery from the COVID-19 impact. The country's GDP increased 2.3% year on year in 2020, making it the only major economy in the world that achieved positive growth last year.
Households heating this winter also made a significant contribution. As the La Nina climate pattern led to an extremely cold winter than previous years, some provinces in the north started the heating period almost one month earlier than usual, while many households in southern provinces bought heating appliances for the first time in decades.
China's power generation totaled 7,417 TWh in 2020, up 2.7% from a year earlier, data from the National Bureau of Statistics showed on January 18.
(Writing by Alex Guo Editing by Tammy Yang)
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