Since the beginning of winter, tens of millions of residents in China have faced power cuts and rationing of electricity. Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang and other places have experienced localized power outages. Shanghai and Guangdong also lost power for a time, but the authorities had other explanations. Tensions between Beijing and Canberra are currently high, and Australian coal imports are being resisted by Beijing authorities, leading to higher coal prices –
AFP 22 reports from Beijing that tens of millions of Chinese people are facing power cuts from authorities due to limited coal supplies and environmental targets, despite the fact that China is in the middle of winter. Residents, factories and businesses in Hunan, central Jiangxi and eastern Zhejiang are affected by the power restrictions, according to Chinese news media and local government reports.
Lauri Myllyvirta of the Helsinki-based Center for Energy and Clean Air Research (CREA) said China’s economic recovery after the events of the coronavirus outbreak, which was driven by energy-intensive industries such as construction, has put pressure on the power grid and coal supplies.
In early December, Hunan authorities ordered lights in buildings to be turned off for several hours a day and restricted heating in entertainment venues. Authorities acknowledged that the province was facing a power shortage, and the power cuts were said to be due to a rise in demand for electricity because of particularly cold temperatures (expected to drop to -10 degrees).
Employees in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, are complaining that they are forced to climb on foot to the floors they want to go to because there are no elevators in the tall buildings. One of them sarcastically took to the social network Weibo, saying: “The heating in the office has been turned off (……) Before the New Year, the temperature will drop to -8 degrees. Will I freeze to death?”
In Zhejiang province, some factories were ordered to stop production and street lighting was turned off at night. AFP quoted local media and some netizens as saying that the move was instead to reduce emissions. And it said the power cuts show that China is forced to find a balance between the needs of its residents and its environmental commitments.
Guangzhou and Shanghai power outages explained by authorities
Guangzhou experienced widespread power outages on Dec. 21. According to a Chinese netizen, “On my way home from a night shift suddenly all the street lights around the buildings on the street were turned off, and I came home to see that the lights were actually on across the street.”
Some residents of Guangzhou’s Liwan district said that from 0:00 on the 21st, the district lost water and electricity, and the cell phone network lost its signal. By about 1:30 a.m., the network returned to normal, but the power outage continued. Some netizens also said, “Bathing half suddenly blacked out, the family is waiting.” One netizen posted a photo of a tall building outside the bay window in total darkness. Others posted videos of their own chandeliers suddenly going out. Some netizens said that shortly after the power outage, the water also gave out!
The official microblog of Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau released an explanation saying that around 0:00 am on December 21, due to equipment failure, affecting some users in the area of Sanyuanli and Lochongwei in Guangzhou. Guangzhou Power Supply Bureau emergency repair, after more than an hour of effort, restored all affected users power supply.
Guangzhou power outage the same day, Shanghai outage notice. According to the Oriental wealth network reported on December 21, that night, the Internet circulated an article “Shanghai tomorrow blackout notice 2020.12.22, so that the public troubled. Linked to the recent tight power situation in Hunan, Zhejiang, Jiangxi and other places, netizens worry whether Shanghai is also a shortage of electricity, the need to limit power, pull power. The newspaper reporter said that the newspaper learned from the State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Company, the notice involves the power outages are planned “safety maintenance”, belong to the daily maintenance of the power grid.
Some netizens’ messages were half-hearted about this official statement, with one saying: “This is “no silver bullet here”. Another netizen said: “That is because the price of coal has risen, can only be overhauled”. Others said: not that there is a lack of electricity, but the cost of power generation is high. Another netizen who speculates on stocks judged: “No wind, no waves, you can’t go wrong buying coal stocks”.
China’s power supply is “largely stable” and promises to increase coal supplies, according to the country’s National Development and Reform Commission on Monday. According to AFP, there are also suspicions on the Internet that this power cut in China, against the backdrop of Beijing’s diplomatic crisis with Canberra, could be linked to Chinese government sanctions on Australian coal imports. Yan Qin, an analyst at financial information firm Lufthansa Refinitiv, said “China’s restrictions on Australian coal imports have little impact, while pointing out that the tensions between China and Australia have caused serious concerns in the commodity market, which has pushed up the price of coal in China.
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