Electricity consumption forecast: The growth rate of electricity consumption is expected to be 5.5% in 2019

"In 2018, China's total electricity consumption reached 6.84 trillion KWH, up 8.5 percent and 1.9 percentage points year-on-year, the highest growth rate since 2012. "Growth has fallen quarter by quarter, but is generally at a high level." Yu Chongde, full-time vice chairman and secretary General of China Electric Power Union, introduced the report on the Analysis and Forecast of national Power supply and Demand situation in 2018-2019 (hereinafter referred to as the Report). "Without the impact of widespread extreme temperatures, electricity consumption is expected to grow by around 5.5% in 2019."

It is worth mentioning that in 2018, the tertiary industry and residential electricity consumption continued to grow at a double-digit rate, with the consumption of urban and rural residential electricity at 968.5 billion KWH, an increase of 10.4 percent compared with 2017. Ye Chun, deputy director of the industry development department of the China Electricity Council, said: "The policy of replacing electricity has been continuously promoted, and the increased demand for electricity in high-tech and equipment manufacturing, the Internet and related services has been the main reason for the highest growth rate of electricity consumption in recent years in 2018."

On the supply side, the report shows that China's installed power generation capacity, including hydropower, thermal power, wind power and solar power, ranked first in the world in 2018. According to statistics, China's installed capacity of full-caliber power generation is 1.90 billion kilowatts, up 6.5% year on year. Among them, the installed generating capacity of non-fossil energy is 770 million kilowatts, accounting for 40.8 percent of the total installed capacity and 2.0 percentage points higher than that of the previous year.

Meanwhile, non-fossil energy generated 2.16 trillion KWH of electricity in 2018, up 11.1 percent year on year and accounting for 30.9 percent of the total power generation. The output of grid-connected solar power, wind power and nuclear power increased by 50.8 percent, 20.2 percent and 18.6 percent, respectively, year-on-year.