China’s major fossil energy production and electricity generation in May continued to grow on year, though the paces of growth for some sectors such as natural gas and thermal power slowed from April, according to data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
In May, China produced 326.3 million tonnes of raw coal for utilisation, edging up by 0.6% on year, or reversing from the downtrend from the prior two months, NBS data showed.
Coal is the country’s core source for energy and electricity generation, but the output growth has been limited in the past couple of months due to the authorities’ intensified inspections on workplace safety because of recent mining accidents, even though some large-sized and advanced coal capacities had been commissioned by May in China, as reported.
As for fossil energy imports, both coal and crude oil declined on year in May partly on rising prices as well as lower coal imports from Australia, Mysteel Global noted.
In contrast, natural gas, another major energy product with the growing popularity as part of Beijing’s efforts to promote clean energy consumption, posted highest growths in both domestic production and imports for both May and in the first five months of 2021, the NBS data showed.
As for China’s power generation in May, it total 647.8 billion kWh, or up 7.9% on year but lower than the 11% on-year gain in April, which was mainly reflected in thermal power generation, which grew 5.6% on year to 450.7 billion kWh in May compared with the 12.5% on-year growth in April, the NBS data showed.
As for power consumption, it went up 17.7% on year for the first five months, while all the three sectors including agriculture, industry and tertiary posted higher than average on-year gains in their power consumption, while consumption by the residential neighbourhoods grew by merely 4.1% on year, according to the sharing by the country’s National Development and Reform Commission.
In May, clean energy including hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar, on the other hand, continued to grow faster on year than thermal coal, Mysteel Global noted from the NBS Data,
Supported by rising precipitation particularly in the regions south of the Yangtze River in China since May, the country’s hydro power generation jumped 12.1% on year to 95.6 billion kWh, though it still fell 3.3% on year on average for the same period of 2020 and 2019, while all the others posted average on-year gains in the past two years, NBS highlighted.
Source: Sean Xie, Hongmei Li
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