China's maximum power load hits record high on soaring temperatures
A worker examines electric cables in Hangzhou, capital city of Zhejiang Province, on July 12.
China's maximum power load hit a record 1.22 billion kilowatts on Tuesday, the state planner said on Thursday, after temperatures soared this week.
Several cities broke new records for high temperatures on Tuesday as scorching heat and contrasting relentless rains wreaked havoc, with forecasters expecting weather extremes to linger for days.
Power generation reached 27.854 billion kilowatt hours on the same day, Li Yunqing, director of the Operation Bureau at the National Development and Reform Commission, told a news briefing.
The planner is making every effort to ensure energy supply during the summer peak, he added, and so far it has been stable.
A surge in hydropower output in China this year, boosted by record-breaking rainfall, is also helping the world's biggest power user avert power shortages and reduce coal consumption.
Li said the state planner was urging coal regions to increase production where possible and power plants currently had 170 million tons of coal in storage, an increase of nearly 60 million tons over the same period last year, enough for 26 days of use.
The scale of unplanned outages and output obstructions of coal power generation has dropped to the lowest level in many years, and the peak output of gas power generation has increased significantly, he said.
