Sunrise over the ultra-high voltage lines of the west-to-east electricity transmission project in Wuwei, Gansu Province, on January 1, 2022 Photo: IC

 

Electricity supply for general businesses and industrial production has fully resumed in Southwest China's Sichuan Province, with the exception of some high energy-consuming enterprises. With the power shortage continually easing, all industrial production will resume soon and the temporary electricity shortage will have limited impact on the nation's overall industrial output for the year, experts said.

With the rainfall and dropping temperature, the electricity shortage in Sichuan has been eased, the China Media Group (CMG) learned from the State Grid. As of Sunday, the daily hydropower generating capacity of Sichuan, a major hydropower generator in China, has increased 9.5 percent from the recent low point, the report said.

This round of "power shortage in Sichuan will be basically solved in the next three days," Zhao Hong, an official from the Sichuan brunch of the State Grid, was quoted as saying in an interview with CMG.

RML, an advanced electronic sensor maker located in Chengdu, Sichuan, said in a filing to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Sunday that its power supply and production have fully resumed on Saturday, according to financial news site stcn.com.

The current round of power restrictions will not impact the long-term development of the company, RML said. Its net profit attributable to the parent company's shareholders rose 68.5 percent year-on-year in the first half of the year to 194 million yuan ($28.23 million).

Photovoltaic cell maker, Tongwei Co, recently said that its production lines in Sichuan would swiftly resume running at full capacity once power restrictions ease, according to news site bjnews.com.

The industrial sector consumes over 60 percent of power in China, while residents only consume less than 15 percent, Lin Boqiang, director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Drought-hit Sichuan saw its electricity generation capacity drop lately. In order to meet residents' power needs first, the local government announced that it would implement electricity supply restrictions for some industrial production starting on August 15, according to media reports.

In order to help Sichuan solve the issue, the State Grid and other departments swiftly started to transfer power to the province, Lin noted. 

Sichuan and nearby Chongqing Municipality are major manufacturing bases in China. Though this round of power restrictions would inevitably impact the production of regional firms in the short term, the long-term impact is negligible given that the restrictions were only briefly implemented, Cong Yi, a professor at the Tianjin University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times.

However, this round of electricity shortage does offer a wake-up call for certain regions to improve their energy structures and for the nation to improve its energy utilization rate as extreme weather becomes increasingly frequent, Cong noted.

In the second half of the year, it is crucial for China to seize every opportunity to promote its economic recovery, such as enhancing tax reductions and further offering subsidies to certain firms, Cong said.

The added value of industrial enterprises above designated size in Sichuan increased by 3.8 percent year-on-year in the first seven months of the year, official data showed on August 16. A total of 17 out of 41 industries in Sichuan saw increased added value in that period, of which manufacturing of electrical machinery and equipment grew by 34.6 percent.