In the past few days, there have been reports in the mainland media of power outages in many parts of China, including Beijing, the capital, Shanghai, China’s largest city, and Guangdong, the country’s largest province in terms of GDP.
According to a power outage notice sent out by China Today, some areas of Beijing were without power between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. on the 22nd, affecting parts of Xicheng, Dongcheng, Fengtai and Changping districts of Beijing. The day before, on the 21st, Beijing already had a round of blackouts during the same time period, but in a different area, which appeared to be a “rotating blackout” situation. However, perhaps Beijing did not want to draw attention to this blackout, so the news of the blackout was subsequently deleted.
In addition, Today’s Headlines also sent out a “blackout plan” for Shanghai’s “Pudong Power Supply Company,” which also took place on the 21st and 22nd, from 6:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., affecting a wide range of areas, and in the same way as Beijing, the interview also appeared to be a “rotating blackout” of different areas.
In addition to Beijing and Shanghai, the two municipalities directly under the Central Government, in the early hours of December 21, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Shenzhen, Huizhou and other cities in Guangdong Province also lost power and water without warning.
Videos of the blackout posted on Weibo by local people showed that many streets in Guangdong were dark. Because there was no notice before the power outage, some people complained that they were halfway through a shower when they suddenly ran out of water and electricity; a woman in Guangdong also posted on Weibo that she couldn’t access the Internet during the power outage and seemed to have been cut off from the network, and said she was very anxious and had a “feeling of war” and considered whether to buy Some emergency items. This posting also became a popular topic on Weibo for a while, but it was quickly deleted.
During this time, areas such as Hunan and Zhejiang have taken the lead in pulling the plug and limiting electricity, but now the blackouts are in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, China’s top tier big cities, like these big cities, where energy supply is often a priority, so it’s a bit puzzling that these areas have suddenly experienced massive, and apparently orderly arranged, power outages.
In 2019, the party media People’s Daily also once issued an article that particularly emphasized the importance of electricity supply, the article title is “Why has China not had any large-scale power outages? The content opens with the following: “Electricity is the basic industry of the country, which is related to the national economy and people’s livelihood and economic development. A sudden large-scale power outage would have a catastrophic impact on people’s lives and industrial production, and would also paralyze the operation of water supply, transportation, communications, finance, commercial services and other related industries and fields, posing a serious threat to national security and social stability.”
This article in the party media is a definitive statement by the CCP on the importance of electricity supply, if so, why the blackouts in first-tier cities? What is even more interesting is that just as there was a massive blackout without warning in Guangdong on December 21, the CCP State Council simultaneously released a white paper on “China’s Energy Development in a New Era”.
In this white paper, the Chinese Communist Party stated in high profile that “the capacity of energy supply security has been continuously enhanced,” but the timing of this white paper seems ironic in light of the current power outages in many parts of China.
The white paper also states, “According to preliminary estimates, China’s total primary energy production reached 3.97 billion tons of standard coal in 2019, making it the world’s largest energy producer.”
“The coal production and transportation synergy guarantee system has been gradually improved, the safe and stable operation of electricity has reached the world’s advanced level, and the comprehensive energy emergency guarantee capacity has been significantly enhanced.”
The huge contrast between the Chinese Communist Party’s official choice to flaunt energy supply achievements at a time when many parts of the country were experiencing power outages led many netizens to say, “Is the State Council’s white paper a joke?”
Wang Juntao: China’s Economic Policy Goes Seriously Wrong
Regarding the cause of the sudden and massive power outage in mainland China, Dr. Wang Juntao, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese Democratic Party, said in an interview that “there is a problem with energy supply.” According to Wang Juntao, at present, due to China’s domestic economic downturn, as well as with some countries to make the relationship tense, for example, Australian coal can not come in, which will cause some impact, no matter what, it shows that China’s economic policy has occurred a serious problem.
In the memory of the Chinese people, the last time there was a massive “power cut” probably dates back to nearly 20 years ago, when 12 provinces and regions across China implemented a “power cut” in 2002, when Chinese factories had to “open three and stop four” and “stop elevators in shopping malls and turn on half of the street lights” during the peak electricity consumption period.
At that time, China’s installed power generation capacity was less than 360 million kilowatts, but now, as of the end of September 2020, China’s installed power generation capacity is 2.09 billion kilowatts, about six times that of that year, but the history of “blackout” has been played out again. Of the 2.09 billion kilowatts of installed power generation capacity, 60% is thermal power, including coal and natural gas power, and coal power accounts for most of it.
At the same time, rapid power investment has also left China’s power industry facing the problem of overcapacity, which can be seen in the documents issued by the Communist Party of China (CPC). In June 2020, the CPC National Development and Reform Commission, in conjunction with the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and other departments, issued a notice on the elimination of excess capacity, in which two industries, coal and coal power, were specifically named, and specific work points were listed for each of these two industries to eliminate excess capacity.
Here, we use an industry indicator called “utilization hours” to give some explanation. Hours of utilization refers to the utilization of power generation equipment, that is, the higher the number of hours of operation of power generation equipment in a year of 8,760 hours, the higher the utilization rate. It is also a side measure of power supply and demand. When the supply of electricity is tight, the number of hours of utilization rises, and when the supply exceeds the demand, the number of hours of utilization naturally falls.
According to the China Electricity Council, the average utilization of coal power in China was 4,416 hours in 2019, and by the first three quarters of 2020, it was 3,119 hours, down 140 hours year-over-year. The 4,000+ utilization hours a year would suggest that China’s thermal power plants, if operating at full capacity, would only be generating electricity about half the time in a year.
Since there is excess coal power capacity, why can’t they “protect people’s livelihoods” at critical times? This confirms the words of Dr. Wang Juntao, “China’s economic policy is in serious trouble”.
On December 22, China Energy Network said in an article that port coal inventories are rapidly declining, driven by a lack of upstream supply and strong demand, but at the same time, the national cooling and the active start of major coal-consuming industries make coal demand strong, and downstream coal buyers have sent ships to the northern ports to grab coal.
While resources are tightening and quality coal is still in short supply, the Chinese Communist Party has also banned the import of Australian coal, which adds to the problem for power plants.
Is the power outage due to equipment failure or normal maintenance?
Of course, the Chinese Communist Party certainly does not admit that its economic policy is problematic, so let’s see how the official response to the blackout.
The Guangdong Power Supply Bureau claimed that the blackout was due to equipment failure, and emphasized that “the power grid is running stably and there are no peak restrictions”. Staggered power supply means that the power supply is limited at different times.
On December 21 and 22, Shanghai Electric Power Company and Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau also said that the local power outage was a normal maintenance and there was no staggered power supply and no shortage of electricity.
From these official replies, it can be seen that these places are denying “power restrictions” while they are experiencing massive power outages.
Some people in Shanghai said directly to the foreign media that they do not believe the official explanation, because since China’s accession to the WTO, Shanghai has not had any large-scale power outages.
For the Guangdong blackout, some Chinese netizens also said, “I seriously doubt that the Guangzhou blackout is not a line failure, it must be a ghost of that what provincial electricity, which has several places taking turns to fail.”
Drills for major emergencies?
Dr. Wang Juntao believes that the power outage in southeast China does not exclude that the CCP is preparing for war and building military facilities, and that these military projects consume a lot of electricity. But there is also the possibility that the CCP is conducting a new management test, equivalent to a drill-style, because it is preparing for the possibility of a major emergency.
This analysis is also a real possibility, because just a month ago, several mainland media reported that Guangzhou City held an emergency drill for a major power outage in Nansha on Nov. 19. The report mentioned that this was the largest power outage emergency drill in Guangzhou over the years, simulating damage to some of the transmission and substation equipment, and that new technologies and equipment were used to repair the power, with specific reference to unmanned, dead-end inspections of transmission lines, cable tunnels, substations, distribution rooms, etc., with the help of robots, and to maximize the comprehensive utility of new technologies in the emergency response to large power outages.
From this month-old report, one can’t help but think that the power outages that occur in the first-tier cities of the CCP are not all drills to prepare for war.
On December 20, Taiwan‘s Ministry of National Defense issued a press release stating that the Chinese aircraft carrier “Shandong” and its four frigates sailed south from Dalian Port in Liaoning Province on December 17, and continued sailing southward after passing through the Taiwan Strait on December 20. During this period, Taiwan dispatched six ships and eight aircraft to monitor the ship.
At a time when U.S.-China relations are deteriorating, and when the Chinese Communist Party just refused to attend a communication meeting with the U.S. military about a week ago, and now suddenly sends an aircraft carrier, showing a blatant provocation, the risk of military conflict in the South China Sea is extremely high under the current situation.
At the same time, Sino-Japanese relations are also strained, and on December 14, Japanese Defense Minister Nobuo Kishi held a meeting with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe by video, in which Kishi expressed concern about the repeated sailing of Chinese official vessels into the waters around Diaoyutai, triggering another conflict between China and Japan. The Japanese side took a tough stance and warned the Chinese side not to escalate the situation, or else they would start a fight.
At a time when the situation between China and Japan, the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea are all tense, a few days ago, the State Grid Hunan Electric Power has taken the lead in saying that it has entered a “wartime state”. So, this “wartime state”, it is difficult to imply that a war is coming?
Or perhaps, this “wartime state” there is another interpretation, that is, the re-emergence of the great plague. From the limited information available, it can be found that the supply of electricity is also very important when the epidemic strikes again in winter. On Dec. 23, an article in the mainland media, “State Grid Hubei Electric Power: Brightness Battle” may have revealed some clues, saying that “State Grid Hubei Electric Power” started emergency response at the first time, and a battle with the epidemic to defend the power grid was in full swing.
The article mentions, “In the most critical juncture of the epidemic in Hubei, the State Grid Corporation ‘a chessboard’ command and dispatch, cross-provincial deployment of elite troops, the entire network to protect Central China, Central China to protect Hubei, Hubei to protect Wuhan.”
The article also says: “All-out efforts were made to protect the economy with electricity. In the integrated promotion of epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development of the two-front war”, to “break through the State Grid Corporation policy measures, the very time to lift the very force.” We know that Wuhan was the first place where the epidemic broke out earlier this year, so it makes sense that Hubei would take the lead in shouting. It is also possible to speculate that the power outages in the four major cities of the Communist Party of China (CPC), North China, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, may have been a preemptive rehearsal for the outbreak.
The Chinese Communist Party has always operated in the dark, keeping ordinary people in the dark, so only the Chinese Communist Party itself knows the real reason for this massive blackout.
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