China Runs Low on Power
China's high-speed economic engine could be running low on power -- literally. A national electricity shortage is crimping production and pushing up some industrial-goods prices.
It's not yet a crisis, at least for foreign investors, many of whom already have backup generators and enjoy priority allocation of power from local authorities, executives say. "Most of the temporary outages are scheduled brownouts where industrial users are warned in advance," said Jim Brock, an independent energy consultant in Beijing.
Still, the world's fastest-growing power market has a shortfall that one industry executive puts at 40 gigawatts. China, he calculates, currently has about 11% less electricity-generating capacity than it needs.
The world's second-largest consumer is in the midst of a massive industry restructuring that should alleviate some of its power problems. However, some of the changes, such as competition in power-generation and in price-setting, could complicate efforts to tackle current shortages. In the meantime, by aggressively rationing electricity and controlling demand to prevent spikes, China aims to avoid the kind of massive, costly blackout that affected millions of people in the northeastern U.S. and Canada in August.
Many companies in China are scrambling to protect themselves from a situation that analysts generally expect will get worse before it gets better. Sales of power generators are booming, says Cummins Engine Co., which recently sold three units to Citigroup in Shanghai.
Some companies already have been hurt. COFCO Coca-Cola Co., a joint venture bottling plant for Coca-Cola Co. and China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs Import & Export Co. in Hunan province, has operated since early November under a provincial energy-saving order that means it has no electricity one out of every four workdays, said a production supervisor who declined to be identified. "We have started our crisis-management plan to control the losses," he said, adding that the plant in Changsha city is considering buying a generator system to provide its own electricity.
Hunan, in China's southwest, faces one of the nation's most serious power shortages as a severe drought has crippled the hydropower stations that provide nearly half of the province's energy. The state-run Hunan Power Co. says any administrative area that exceeds the daily power-consumption guidelines will face a blackout the following day, said Ou Yang Yongxi, a senior engineer in the company's policy-research office.
In Shanghai, Hudong Shipbuilding Group and other major shipyards have been asked to shift production to nights and weekends, and been warned they may have to abruptly turn off equipment, a company official said. Hudong has ordered all offices and workshops to turn off the heating systems despite cold temperatures. (The low temperatures on some recent days in Shanghai have been about 4.4 degrees Celsius.) "Our biggest concerns are production assignments for many foreign clients and Chinese military ship orders, the Hudong official said.
In the eastern province of Zhejiang, Hangzhou No. 2 Cement Factory experienced a blackout two days last week, after being forced to suspend almost all production this past summer. Currently, it can complete less than half of its daily production target of 25,000 tons (22,680 metric tons) of cement and overall production is expected to fall 60%, company officials said. Partly as a result, cement prices in the province are between 60% to 80% higher than at the start of this year, according to official Chinese media.
The power problems "have caused losses of millions of yuan every month," griped one cement company official. "It not only affects the factory's economic situation, but also the lives of 1,500 employees."
Although signs of shortages emerged almost a year ago, the situation is a stark reversal from just a few years ago, when China had excess electricity supply. As the global economy picked up and China started booming, a forecast the government made in 2000 for annual average 6% power demand growth over the next five years quickly proved too conservative. In the first six months of this year, demand skyrocketed 17% from a year earlier. Power demand now is expected to rise 15% next year and 11% in 2005, says the State Grid Corporation of China.
The situation worsened through the summer as hot, dry weather undermined hydropower stations and the effects of underinvestment in electricity-generation capacity in recent years took its toll. Money is flowing into generation projects from small coal-fired power plants to the massive Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydropower facility. But it will take time for these projects to reach full capacity; experts expect the demand-supply imbalance to last well into 2005.
"With the growth rate of power demand exceeding the rate at which China can bring on generating capacity, China will face shortages for at least the next 18 months," says Adi Karev, a consultant at Deloitte in Washington, District of Columbia, who does advisory work in China. "It is critical for China to manage the power crunch to prevent a power crisis."
Even with enough capacity, China faces another serious problem: an underdeveloped grid system that lacks interconnections between regions. The shortages have been felt most acutely in the eastern part of the country, where heavy industry, construction and the consumer sector are all booming; the southern city of Guangzhou, for example, typically has power-reserve margins of less than 5%. Western provinces such as Inner Mongolia and Yunnan, by contrast, have reserve margins as high as 30%. The government is building transmission lines to bring western supply to meet eastern demand, but industry observers say there is a risk that not enough is being done.
中国面临电力短缺
毫不夸张地说，电力问题可能会导致中国的高速经济增长引擎动力不足。全国性的电力短缺正在影响生产，并且抬高了部分工业产品的价格。
不过，至少对外国投资者而言，这还没有到达危机的程度。许多外资公司都有备用发电机，并且还能够从当地政府那里优先得到电力供应。驻北京的独立能源咨询人士吉姆?布洛克(Jim Brock)称，多数暂时停电都有事先安排，电力用户都提前得到了通知。
但据一位业界高层人士估计，这个世界上增长最快的电力市场依然短缺400亿瓦特的电力，有11%的电力需求还得不到满足。
中国是世界上第二大电力消费市场，其电力行业正在进行大规模重组，估计重组会在一定程度上解决电力的短期问题。但是，在发电和定价上引入竞争机制等举措可能会使解决电力短缺问题的努力更加复杂化。不过，通过更积极的办法分配电力和控制需求，中国应能避免类似8月份美国东北部和加拿大的停电事件。
分析师普遍认为在电力问题彻底解决前停电事件仍会有增无减，中国的许多公司正在抓紧采取措施，避免遭受电力供应中断的打击。康明斯发动机公司(Cummins Engine Co.)称，发电机销售旺盛。该公司最近向花旗集团(Citigroup)在上海的公司出售了3台发电机。
一些公司已经受到了影响。湖南省的中粮可口可乐饮料有限公司(COFCO Coca-Cola Co.)自11月初就按照省里要求实施节能措施，这意味著每4个工作日就有1天停电。该公司一位拒绝透露姓名的生产负责人说，他们已经开始实施危机管理计划，以控制损失。其在长沙市的工厂在考虑购买一套发电系统以自供电力。中粮可口可乐饮料有限公司是中国粮油食品进出口（集团）公司(China National Cereals, Oils & Foodstuffs Import & Export Co.)与可口可乐(Coca-Cola Co.)的合资企业。
湖南省是全国电力短缺最为严重的地区之一。由于严重乾旱，湖南省的水电站受到了严重影响，而水电是该省的半数电力来源。国有湖南电力公司(Hunan Power Co.)政策研究办公室的高级工程师欧阳永喜(Ou Yang Yongxi音译)说，任何超出了每日用电规定的地区在次日都将面临停电。
在上海，沪东造船集团(Hudong Shipbuilding Group)和其他主要造船厂都被要求将生产时间转到晚上或周末。公司管理人士称，他们已得到警告，可能会被要求突然关闭机器设备。虽然天气较冷，但沪东造船集团已通知所有办公室和生产车间关闭取暖系统。(上海最近的低温有时只有摄氏4.4度。) 这位人士说，他们担心的最大问题是涉及许多外国客户和中国军方订单的生产任务是否能够按时完成。
在浙江省，杭州第二水泥厂(Hangzhou No. 2 Cement Factory)上周有两天断电，而今年夏天该公司曾被迫暂时全面停产。该公司管理人士说，目前，公司水泥日产量不到25,000吨(合22,680公吨)目标的一半，预计总产量也将减少。而据中国官方媒体的报导，这在一定程度上导致浙江省的水泥价格较年初上涨了60%-80%。
一位水泥公司管理人士说，缺电问题每个月都导致了数百万元的损失。这不仅影响了工厂的经济效益，也影响了1,500名职工的生活。
尽管缺电只不过是在一年前才开始出现，但这和中国几年前电力过剩的情况形成了鲜明对比。随著全球经济回升和中国经济的蓬勃发展，中国政府2000年作出的未来5年电力需求平均每年增加6%的预测很快就显得过于保守。今年前6个月，电力需求较上年同期陡增17%。中国国家电网公司(State Grid Corporation of China) 称，预计明年电力需求将增加15%，2005年增加11%。
供需失衡在今年夏天变得尤为突出，原因是干热天气削弱了水电站的发电能力，同时发电能力增长赶不上电力需求程度。Deloitte驻华盛顿的咨询师阿迪?卡列夫(Adi Karev)说，至少在未来18个月，中国仍将面临电力短缺问题。中国的当务之急是管理电力紧张局面以避免电力危机。
即便发电能力充足，中国也面临另一个严重问题：电网落后，跨地区缺乏联系。电力短缺主要是在中国东南部，而这里的重工业、建筑业和消费行业全都发展很快；譬如在南部的广州市，备用容量率不到5%。而在内蒙和云南等西部省份，备用容量率高达30%。政府正在铺设更多的输电线路，用西部的电力供应来满足东部的需求。但业界观察人士认为，这方面的进展还不够。
