BEIJING, July 5 (Xinhua) -- China's power supply will remain sufficient for the next three years, according to a forecast from an industrial think tank released Wednesday.
China's power consumption is likely to reach between 6.65 trillion and 6.93 trillion kilowatt-hours in 2019, said the Electric Power Planning and Engineering Institute (EPPEI), a think tank under the state-owned China Energy Engineering Group.
The prediction is based on the country's power development goals, the level of power exchange between regions and controlling plans on coal-fired power, the EPPEI said in an electricity development report.
Du Zhongming, vice president of EPPEI, said he expects a significant rebound in power use in high energy consumption industries this year, driven by a pick-up in industrial profits and improved conditions at traditional manufacturers.
But for next year and the year after, power use in high energy consumption industries would drop from the 2017 level, Du said.
China's electricity consumption, an important indicator of economic activity, rose 6.4 percent year on year to 2.43 trillion kilowatt-hours in the first five months this year, official figures showed.
The EPPEI expects China to see new hydroelectric pumped storage plants with installed capacity of 8.7 million kilowatts in the next three years, while the role of the coal power sector will shift from a key electricity provider to a basic source of power supply.
Meanwhile, most of new conventional hydropower projects will be built in the southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, and new nuclear power plants will mostly be built in the eastern Shandong Province and other southeastern coastal regions, it said.
It also suggested that wind and solar power should be promoted in regions with higher power-consuming abilities, such as the central, eastern and southern areas, and that measures should be taken to keep abandoned wind and solar power at an appropriate level.
