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Sweeping orders to cut power use in China expose poor grid planning

蘋果日報 2020/12/18 20:45


A number of regions in mainland China have instructed households and factories to cut back on electricity usage, catching residents and businesses off-guard just as things are beginning to look up after the pandemic.
Across Zhejiang, Hunan, Jiangxi and other provinces, companies that have been eager to resume production now find themselves bemoaning a government measure which has not been imposed for ages and is preventing them from cashing in on the lucrative pre-Lunar New Year period. In Hunan’s capital city Changsha, office executives are having to climb 30 floors to get to work.
In the meantime, an industry academic has advised that local governments should plan their power grids better in order to resolve the problem of shortage.
The National Development and Reform Commission on Thursday stepped in to explain the orders issued by the provincial governments. It said that a sudden drop in temperatures, peak household demand for heating in the winter and a sharp increase in industrial activity due to the economic recovery had combined to drive up electricity usage. The economic planning agency was taking action to ensure balanced coal supplies as the chilly weather wore on.
Despite the top-level clarification, questions and discontent abound in the affected provinces. Chinese internet users challenged provincial officials, accusing them of sacrificing the lives and productivity of the public in order to meet their own performance targets in energy savings and emission reductions.
Some Jiangsu residents also questioned why their province, which was adjacent to Zhejiang, did not have to suffer power restrictions and instead still enjoyed street lights and heaters.
Provincial governments should enhance their planning in the development of the regional power grid instead of enlarging the capacity of coal fuel installations, said Yuan Jiahai, professor at North China Electric Power University.
The authorities should examine the overall electricity system and optimize the supply structure by improving the transmission of power from the western regions of China to the east, Yuan said.
In Jiangsu, where it is still warm and bright by comparison, an official promotional video released in 2017 shows that officials have improved their power grid to draw electricity from other provinces. With the development of inter-provincial infrastructure, Jiangsu can take electricity from Sichuan, Anhui, Inner Mongolia and other regions when necessary, to meet the high demand by its own users. The provincial government therefore has no need to build new power plants or restrict usage.
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