China Fraught with Massive Power Outages

A Land with a Growing Population

When I lived for several years in China during the mind-1990s, my Danish boss Lars would frequently say, "China has more than a billion mouths to feed, a billion people to keep happy - and all the burden to make it happen."

Now more than ever Lars' words ring true.

A Land of Growing Infrastructure

As early as a few months ago, mainland news outlet China Daily issued a report citing China's concerns over the mainland's rising power consumption. The Daily sites Tan Rongyao, supervisor of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, as saying that power shutdowns reached serious levels in China from January to April this year. Power generation was shut down completely in some regions due to coal shortages.

With a rapid rise in electricity consumption both for commercial use (such as factories) and private applications (such as home air conditioning or heating), China's electric power infrastructure is severely challenged in matching the demands of a new generation of consumers. With gadgets ranging from kitchen refrigerators, to home air conditioners, to being one of the world's largest internet- and cell phone-connected populations, China's hunger for electricity can only grow.

With this unprecedented spurt in consumption, it only makes sense that China's power grid will be taxed beyond capacity.

"Rolling Blackouts"

China is no newcomer to the power shortage problem.

During my years-long stay in the coastal city of Shanghai, I was witness to some power outages, especially during the summer. Back then, with Shanghai's access to the latest of technology on all fronts, it seems these outages lasted only a few hours. It seemed that cities further inland '" such as Beijing '" took the power loss as a great blow.

In conversations with friends who lived in Beijing, they spoke of summertime "rolling blackouts" across certain districts of the city as an effort to evenly distribute and conserve energy. Reports of deaths due to heat stroke and economic losses suffered by businesses due to lack of power were not uncommon.

Availability of Power is a Growing Problem

Taiwan-based Focus China reports on China's electricity-rationing measures and its impact on cross-strait order fulfillment. The China Daily further reports, "China is facing the worst power shortage this year since 2004, while industrial power consumption is growing at 12 percent year-on-year, according to statistics from the China Electricity Council."

Given that a small percentage of China's overall electric service fails, and assuming the demand from China's massive population, a regional grid blackout would mean an outage for literally tens of thousands of users in any given place.

China no doubt retains power consumption as a high priority on the long list of its many other issues at hand.

While China builds a brand new coal-fired power plant on average of every two weeks, this rate still does not match the growing rate of demand '" not to mention its lack of sustainability.

Sources:

Focus Taiwan: No quick solution to China's power shortage

China Daily: Overcapacity being cut amid power shortages

China Daily: Unprecedented power shortages expected