China's thermal power generation falls for third month in July despite record heat
BEIJING, Aug 15 (Reuters) - China's thermal power generation in July fell from a year earlier for a third month even though the country recorded its hottest month in recent history, sending power use rising, statistics bureau data showed on Thursday.
China's thermal power generation last month fell 4.9% from a year ago to 574.9 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), despite total power generation rising 2.5% to 883.1 billion kWh, the National Bureau of Statistics reported (NBS).
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The NBS data reflects power generation from industrial enterprises that have annual revenue of at least 20 million yuan ($2.79 million).
Thermal power generation comes mostly from coal in China with a small portion from natural gas-fired power plants.
As thermal power fell, hydropower captured much of the increase in demand last month, rising 36.2% from a year ago to 166.4 billion kWh.
Higher temperatures during the summer usually increases electricity consumption as residents run their air conditioning.
Analysts had previously warned that a serious heatwave could potentially derail China's progress on reducing coal-fired power generation.
For the January to July period, thermal power output rose by just 0.5% from a year earlier to 3.58 trillion kWh, putting it on track to decline for the full year if the monthly trend continues.
Total power generation during the first seven monthsof 2024 was 5.32 trillion kWh, up 4.8% from the previous year.
Lauri Myllyvirta, senior fellow at Asia Society Policy Institute, said China's power demand could ease during the rest of the year in "a return towards normal after a period of anomalously high demand growth".
"Energy demand growing at the same rate as GDP and electricity demand growing significantly faster reflected a shift in the economic structure towards energy intensive industry that cannot continue for very long as markets are saturated."
($1 = 7.1614 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Colleen Howe; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Christian Schmollinger)