Coal stocks nearing critical shortage
- Source: Global Times
- [09:17 December 20 2010]
- Comments
By Huang Jingjing
A severe coal shortage has caused power supplies to factories and residential neighborhoods to be temporarily suspended across seven provinces and regions, as the nation's energy shortage worsens.
Coal reserves have been emptied by a huge surge in power demand, prompted by a cold weather front that swept China last week, according to the State Grid Corporation, China National Radio (CNR) reported Sunday.
In northwest Shaanxi Province, 14 major thermal power stations had only enough coal stocks for four days, with two others already empty. Due to this worrying state of affairs, many enterprises and residents in the province have received notice of impending power cuts, according to the local China Business View.
In provincial capital Xi'an, water supplies and heating systems have been affected. One residential compound containing 12,000 households announced that the power would be cut for the next 10 days from 8 am to 11 pm, the paper reported.
"Our electricity was cut two days ago, but we were told there would be no enforced power cuts in the near future. Residents in the neighborhood have switched their heating devices from electricity to natural gas, which might be more expensive but more convenient," a local resident surnamed Wang in Xi'an told the Global Times Sunday.
Meanwhile, in Shandong, the entire province is facing a total coal penury in 15 days, CNR reported. This trend was followed in other provinces, from Jiangsu and Guizhou to the coal-producing hubs of Henan and Shanxi, as well as the sprawling municipality of Chongqing.
"Such shortfalls occur nearly every year in winter. It's a vicious circle caused by the current coal-dominated energy structure," Han Xiaoping, analyst with an energy consultancy website, china5e.com, told the Global Times Sunday.
According to the 2009 annual report of China's power industry, released by China Electricity Council (CEC) in July, at the end of last year thermal power generation stood at 651 million kilowatts (of which 599 million were made from coal), accounting for 74 percent of the total generation capacity.
Meanwhile, hydropower accounted for only 22.46 percent of the total, or 196 million kilowatts, while wind stood at 17.6 million kilowatts, doubling its capacity for the fourth year in a row.
To meet the goals of CO2 emission cuts in the 11th Five Year Plan, for 2005-2010, the CEC report showed that thermal generators with a capacity of about 60 million kilowatts had been shut down by 2009, with the equivalent of 10 million more to follow in 2010.
However, this development is struggling to catch up with growing consumer demands for electricity. The national grid reported a total of 3.66 trillion kilowatt hours in 2009, up 6.44 percent from the previous year. This is set to continue with the CEC predicting a 9 percent rise this year and a 10 percent rise in 2012.
Explaining the power cuts, Han attributed the blame for the shortage to the soaring coal prices.
Insufficient transportation facilities and an increase in transportation costs were also to blame, Han said.
He added that transferring electricity from other provinces is only a stopgap measure, saying that a market-oriented power supply system needed to be introduced.
"Only with the introduction of market competition, can the energy structure reform proceed quickly," Han said.
However, Jiang Kejun, director of the Energy Research Institute at the National Development and Reform Commission, struck an optimistic tone about energy security.
"These power shortages are just seasonal and influenced by the fluctuating coal price. There's been fast construction of clean-power stations and reduction of electricity consumption tariffs for enterprises," Jiang told the Global Times Sunday.
Liu Linlin contributed to this story
