China Power Union releases Analysis and Forecast Report on National Power Supply and Demand Situation in the First Quarter of 2017
Quarter, continuation of operation of macro economy stability to the good development momentum, earlier this year the Spring Festival, and promotes faster after start production in which the air temperature is warmer, coupled with a year earlier low base, the whole society power consumption grew by 6.9% year on year, growth is increased by 3.7% over the previous year, continued the momentum of rapid growth since the second half of 2016. Driven by the 9.0% year-on-year growth in the electricity consumption of the manufacturing sector, the electricity consumption of the secondary industry increased by 7.6% year-on-year, contributing 75.5% of the growth in the whole society, which was the main reason for the rapid growth in the first quarter. Electricity consumption by the tertiary industry and urban and rural residents rose by 7.8% and 2.8%, respectively, both down year-on-year, mainly due to the warm winter and the high base figure for the same period last year. By the end of March, China's installed capacity of power plants with 6,000 kw or above was 1.61 billion KW, up 7.7 percent year on year, and the supply capacity was sufficient. In the central and eastern regions, the proportion of investment in and production of new energy continued to rise. Investment in coal and power generation and new installed capacity both decreased year on year. Power grid enterprises have increased the transfer of new energy, such as wind power, across provinces and regions. Wind power heating and power generation by replacing coal-fired power plants have enhanced the local consumption capacity of wind power, and the problem of wind power abandonment has been significantly alleviated. The overall supply and demand of electricity in China is loose, and there is a relative surplus in some regions. The coal inventory in all sectors is declining, the supply of thermal coal is tight, and the fuel cost of coal power enterprises is rising sharply.
Looking forward to the next three quarters, it is expected that the electricity consumption demand will show a trend of high before and low after. In the first half of the year, the growth rate of the whole society's electricity consumption will be about 6%, and the annual growth rate will be slightly lower than that in 2016. By the end of the year, the installed generating capacity will reach about 1.75 billion kw. The proportion of non-fossil energy in the installed generating capacity will further increase to about 38%. Annual national power
