The heat wave that has hit China for more than a month has led to record power generation in the south of the country and supply disruptions due to grid overload due to increased use of air conditioners.
According to a post on the WeChat social network of China Southern Power Grid, an electric operator that supplies five provinces in the country, the increase in demand took power generation to a record 223 GW (gigawatts) on Monday (25), 3% above last year’s peak load.
With the heat, daily demand in southern areas has been above 200 GW for nearly two weeks. Thus, 21 red alert notifications and 140 orange alert notifications were issued due to high temperatures, predominantly in the southeast and far west, including the city of Xinjiang.
On Tuesday (26), more than 300 cities were expecting temperatures to exceed 35°C, with maximums above 40°C in Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and Hunan. Significant rains were also expected in some central and western regions of the country, according to the National Meteorological Center. Despite the rains, southern China is expected to face persistent heat over the next ten days.
In Guangdong province, electricity consumption increased by 4.9% to an all-time high of 142 GW. The city of Guangzhou, which records temperatures above 37°C after reaching highs of 40°C on Sunday and Monday, has suffered blackouts in recent days. China Southern Power Grid said the company’s drones detected faults in the connections that supply the city, which caused the power outage.
According to Yang Lin, an official at the electric company, each extra point on the thermometers requires up to 5 GW of extra capacity. China’s Electricity Board predicts national energy demand will increase by 7% in the second half, with shortages during peak demand periods in the south, east and center of the country, as well as an overall “tight balance” during the summer.
China, heat and coal
The heat wave has been testing China’s ability to keep its factories running, from the industrial hub of Zhejiang in the east, which borders Shanghai, to the technology hub of Shenzhen in the south, threatened by supply chain disruptions. generated by the growing number of Covid cases.
Energy companies have called for daily coal production to be maintained at record levels of 12.6 million tonnes a year, according to the council’s semi-annual report released last Friday. The industry also recommended import subsidies to avoid shortages.
Meanwhile, the Environment Ministry gave the green light to 20 coal mining projects in the first half of the year as part of Beijing’s efforts to match its energy security plans with the need to boost the economy through infrastructure spending.
Since 2021, the Chinese government has chosen to reopen and expand production of coal mines, producing 220 million more tons in one year – up 6% from 2020. The country is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. , the main causes of the climate crisis.
At the time, the increase in ore consumption coincided with the COP26 meeting in Glasgow, in which authorities discussed reducing emissions. Chinese leader Xi Jinping did not attend the event.
In the first quarter of 2022, Chinese regulators approved the creation of new coal-fired power plants that will account for nearly half of all production capacity approved last year.
