Power outages to slow down China’s economy

China’s insatiable appetite for electricity plus a lack of coal are setting the stage for crippling power outages this year.

China became the world’s largest coal importer in 2011, displacing Japan. It imported 182.4 million tonnes of coal against Japan's 175.2 million tonnes.

China, however, is expected import more coal in 2012 but will still face the certainty of massive power outages rising from a power deficit of some 40 million kilowatts (kW) that could be worsened by the rising cost of coal. China consumed some 4.7 trillion kW hours of electricity in 2011, up 12% from 2010.

The China Electricity Council (CEC) forecast that coal usage by the country's power plants should increase by 150 million tonnes in 2012. It urged government to approve the construction of more railways to transport coal and the building of more power transmission lines to head-off massive power outages.

It also proposes that government regulate the price of coal used for power generation and that the price of electricity be raised to cover the cost of additional coal imports.

CEC estimated China’s electricity requirements this year at 514 trillion kW hours, an almost 10% rise from 2011. It also forecast that the country’s power generating capacity will jump by 85 GW to 1,140 GW this year.

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