China appears to be heading for its worst power shortage since 2004, putting pressure on already struggling industries and strained livelihoods due to restricted energy access. The 26 provinces served by the State Grid Corp of China could face a combined power shortage of 30 gigawatts (GW) this summer. Central, southern, southwestern and eastern provinces introduced power use restrictions and rationing in late March, well ahead of the summer peak demand season, fueling concerns that shortages could worsen and spread to other regions.
Source: China Daily
Jiangsu, Henan, Zhejiang, Guangdong and Hubei provinces are most susceptible to electricity shortages this summer. Jiangsu province alone is expected to face an 11 GW gap between available power supply and expected demand, accounting for 37 percent of the country’s total shortage. Due to power use restrictions and rationing, many factories in the export-oriented eastern provinces have been forced to significantly reduce output, or instead meet their power demands with costly diesel generators.
The recent financial difficulties faced by China’s power companies caused the thermal power supply slump driving these severe shortages. This is particularly true of coal-fired power plants, which provide more than 70 percent of the country’s generation capacity. According to the 2010 Annual Report of the State Electricity Regulation Commission (SERC), the overall deficits for China’s five major thermal power companies (China Datang Corp., China Guodian Corp., China Huadian Group, China Huaneng Group and China Power Investment Corp.) exceeded 60 billion Yuan ($6.23 billion) from 2008 to the end of 2010. In May 2011 alone, these “big five” lost 12.16 billion Yuan ($1.88 billion).
Earlier this year The Worldwatch Institute went to Santo Domingo for the 2011 Caribbean Clean Energy Business Forum. Alexander Ochs, the Director of our Climate and Energy team, presented on our Low-Carbon Energy Roadmap methodology and upcoming work in the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica.
Other presenters included Rene Jean-Jumeau, the Coordinator of the Energy Sector Management Unit at the Haitian Ministry of Public Works, Transport and Communications and one of our key partners in Haiti. He spoke about the Haitian energy system and the needs and opportunities for investment in renewable energy.
Worldwatch’s Climate & Energy team recently received a wind resource assessment for particular zones within the Dominican Republic. This final installment in a series of deliverables from 3TIER complements the solar analyses that 3TIER provided earlier in the project for the country’s two main cities, Santo Domingo and Santiago. With these resources, Worldwatch is now in the process of preparing a presentation of first findings for key in-country stakeholders that will be presented next month in Santo Domingo.
As was noted in a previous post, Worldwatch’s approach combines thorough policy analysis with 3TIER’s resource assessments to provide governments with options for fostering a low-carbon energy mix. These resource assessments are foundational for making planning decisions around generation and transmission in the Dominican Republic.
Chinese manufacturers of clean energy equipment account for more than half of the global supply. Even more impressive is the pace of growth in renewable energy: as recently as 2005, only about 1 GW of wind power capacity was installed across China, and solar cell production was less than 500 megawatts (MW).
The groundbreaking ceremony for the ON Line was actually held last October, and the line is expected to become operational by the end of 2012. ON Line is a joint venture of NV Energy and Great Basin Transmission LLC, the company behind SWIP. The groundbreaking was a well-attended affair, with the likes of Senator Harry Reid and U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar present. U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu personally announced DoE’s decision to award the loan guarantee, the first ever from the Department for a transmission project.
Through these initiatives, we are taking a holistic approach to documenting the potential for low-carbon development, which we believe will provide insights directly useful to policymakers and business leaders. The first half of the project has yielded good results, and we hope it will be the first of many such projects for our Caribbean Program.
