Big power company to meet electricity demand

China Southern Power Grid has maintained stability in power supply and consumption in its regions of operation amid a power crunch in some parts of the nation by stepping up energy supply and implementing supply and consumption plans, the company said on Nov 10.

All coal facilities in Guangdong province, the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, Yunnan province, Guizhou province and Hainan province, where the company operates, are back on track for power production and there has been no power rationing or power cuts for the past week despite consumption seeing relatively rapid growth since May, it said.

During the first 10 months, the five regions saw power production and consumption rise 14.8 percent compared with the same period of the previous year, 1.66 percentage points higher than the national average, it said.

The new energy consumption rates also reached 99.8 percent so far, which have well met people's basic needs, said the company, one of the country's two major power grid companies.

Luo Zuoxian, head of intelligence and research at the Sinopec Economics and Development Research Institute, said gas power generation also played a key role in ensuring adequate power supplies to southern and southwestern regions at a time when the supply of coal for power generation was tight.

The company has also further strengthened overall planning and optimization and handled almost all new energy in the region, which also provides a valuable lesson for future power system construction, he said.

The company is pushing forward construction of three pumped-storage hydropower stations in Guangdong and Guangxi with a total investment of 24 billion yuan ($3.75 billion) and a designed annual power generation capacity of 4.8 billion kilowatt-hours to further ensure energy supply while promoting the transition to green energy in the country.

Together with China Southern Power Grid, State Grid Corp of China－the largest power provider in the country－said that the supply of and demand for power in areas operated by the company have returned to normal so far. The grid will face an overall tight balance of power with gaps in some areas during the heating season this year.

The country also faces a power-consumption peak, along with the dry season for hydropower. So, the scale of power curbs and the electricity gap have been significantly reduced, the company said. Both companies have vowed to increase power supplies while further implementing power price reforms by incorporating all coal-fired power into the electricity market in an orderly manner.