Chinese power consumption up almost 6 per cent

BEIJING, CHINA - China's power consumption in 2009 rose 5.96 percent to 3,643 billion kilowatt hours, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said.

Growth was 0.47 percentage points higher than in 2008.

The administration did not provide power consumption data for last month, but official media said December power consumption grew around 30 percent from a year earlier, citing data from the State Grid Corporation of China, China's leading grid operator.

China's National Bureau of Statistics will publish power output data later, which is normally in line with consumption figures.

In 2009, the average utilization rate of power generators, each with capacity of 6,000 kilowatts and above, fell 121 hours from 2008 to 4,527 hours, the NEA said in a release published on the website of the National Development and Reform Commission.

China's power generating capacity increased 89.7 gigawatts (GW) last year to 874.07 GW at the end of 2009.

The country closed 26.17 GW of small coal-fired power generators last year, bringing total closures to 60.06 GW since 2006, 10 GW more than the target of 50 GW for the five years through 2010, the administration added.