Power shortages in southwest China take people back to pre-technology era
A restaurant puts ice blocks at tables to cool people down in Chengdu, capital of southwest China's Sichuan Province.
Ice blocks... Outdoor summer night gathering... This summer has brought back childhood memories for Chengdu college student Shen Guangjie, when the air conditioner was yet to be installed at her home.
Living in a suburban district of Chengdu, Shen has experienced unstable electricity supply since last week as an intense heatwave maintained its grip on Sichuan Province in China's southwest, with daily high temperatures lingering around 40 degrees Celsius.
"For a long time my way of spending summer holiday was either to stay at my air-conditioned home to play video games, or go to malls with friends to escape the heat, but this summer my lifestyle has changed entirely," Shen exclaimed.
With intermittent power cuts, sometimes lasting for several hours, or even longer, this summer has indeed been different. The local power company told residents that the grid has been ravaged under high demand. To save power, public places in Chengdu have turned up the AC temperatures and gone easy on the lighting.
"Like me, many other people also want to enjoy AC in the malls, so it doesn't feel much cooler at all," Shen said. "Finally it seems like we are back to the pre-AC era."
People play cards at a subway station as they keep cool and avoid scorching outdoor temperatures in China's southwestern city of Chongqing on Wednesday. Metro stations have become temporary "summer resorts" for people in Sichuan.
Every evening, her residential community is thronging with people looking for some cool air. Neighbors share watermelons in the greenery area while some of her friends even spent an evening at an old air-raid shelter at a recently-reopened park, providing green relief for locals.
In fact, one evening her family drove to Longquan Mountain, a scenic area near Chengdu, but to their dismay found it teeming with more people than expected.
"From the top of the mountain, we could see the stars clearly as the city beyond was not as bright as before – most of the landscape lights had been turned off," Shen recalled.
The situation is similar in the neighboring city of Chongqing. To save power, metro lines in the municipality have turned off in-car lights, leaving only emergency lights on. The red-tinted train cars look like a scene out of horror movies.
"It looks just like the haunted house attraction I visited last week, with the commuters as performers in them," commented a netizen "Daosheng" on Weibo.
A metro train in Chongqing with only the emergency light on.
According to Sichuan Electric Power Co of the State Grid, the highest load of power demand currently is 65 million kilowatts, up 25 percent than last year's for the same period.
From this week, measures have been taken to relieve the power shortage in Sichuan. In Yibin, more than 400 enterprises have suspended production while in Chengdu, entertainment venues, such as malls, Internet cafes, bars, karaoke bars and tea houses, have started to turn off air-conditioning until further notice. All landscapes lights and electric advertising boards have been turned off as well.
A commercial zone in Chengdu turned off all the outdoor lighting and electric advertising boards under the power-saving policy.
The unstable power supply is also causing other kinds of inconveniences. As sections of the electric vehicle charging piles in Sichuan have suspended services, long queues have formed in front of piles that are still in operation.
Jimu News reported that many electric car owners in Chengdu, the provincial capital, had to wait for more than 30 minutes to even two hours for charging.
"I changed my schedule to go charging at around 11pm," a car owner surnamed Lin told the newspaper. "That turned out good actually. It was cool and no long waiting line."
Meanwhile, huge blocks of ices have become probably the most popular products in Sichuan and Chongqing.
Ice blocks in the office – this is how ancient people spent their summer.
As air-conditioning systems are turned off in many workplaces, ice blocks have become the only way to bring the temperature down.
A netizen with the screen name "J-Darui" shared her office experience.
"Our air-conditioning has been cut off for two days, and blocks of ice were placed in many corners of the office. I've only seen such scenes in costume dramas," she said on Weibo.
"But it doesn't help much. Some of my colleagues held ice to their chest, some waved fans manically, and me? I'm sweating all over. The temperature in the office rose to 37.5 degrees soon after the ice melted, and work efficiency all flew out of the window."
An aerial photo taken on Tuesday shows the Leshan Giant Buddha in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Situated at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers, which have seen depleting water levels in recent days due to continuous high temperature days, the base of the iconic statue is exposed above the water.
Experts said that the power shortage was caused by severe drought brought by the intense heatwave. Since July, the Yangtze River valley had the least rainfall since 1961 for the same period, with waters from upstream reduced severely as well.
"Up to 77 percent of power generation in Sichuan relies on hydroelectric generation," Lin Boqiang, president of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy, told China News Service. "But with the end of summer, the situation is expected to change for the better. I believe that the power shortage is going to be relieved in one to two weeks."
An aerial picture taken on Wednesday shows the riverbed of the Jialing river, a tributary of the Yangtze River, in Chongqing.
Lin said that 70 percent of power consumption is for industries, so it's reasonable to suspend some production to ensure residential power use.
However, the heat, drought and power shortage are warning signs for humans.
"Fundamentally speaking, people from all over the world should work together to prevent such extreme weather in the future," Lin observed.
