Record heat in China strains power grid, stirs health fears

BEIJING – China warned on July 23 against the risk of power supply disruptions as people struggled to keep cool in record heat baking large swathes of the country, which also spurred warnings to the elderly to guard against heat stroke.

Power demand exceeded 1.5 billion kilowatts for the first time last week, energy officials said,

the

third

successive

record for China

in July, when its first nationwide alert on heat-related health risks also went out.

“High-temperature weather will... have an impact on power generation and supply,” weather official Chen Hui told a press conference on July 23, adding that it would hit hydropower output and reduce the efficiency of photovoltaic generation.

The authorities will send alerts to notify electricity suppliers if tactics such as peak-shaving and cross-regional dispatching of power are called for, added Ms Chen, an official of the China Meteorological Administration.

Over the weekend, China announced that construction had begun on what will be

the world’s largest hydropower dam in Tibet

, at an estimated cost of at least US$170 billion (S$217.21 billion), cheering investors but vexing downstream neighbours India and Bangladesh.

The project is expected to produce 300 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity annually, equal to the amount of electricity consumed by Britain in 2024, as Beijing seeks to meet the country’s growing power demand.

Since mid-March, the number of days when temperatures hit 35 deg C or more is the highest on record, said Dr Jia Xiaolong, deputy director of the National Climate Centre.

The authorities asked the elderly to stay indoors unless necessary while urging outdoor workers to scale down activity on such “sauna days”.

Temperatures have hit new highs since mid-March in the central provinces of Henan and Hubei,

Shandong in the east

, Sichuan in the south-west, and north-western Shaanxi and Xinjiang, pushing the national average to the second highest on record.

During the last two weeks, above 40 deg C heat enveloped 407,000sq km of the country, Dr Jia said. That is more than the land area of Germany or Japan.

In the same period, roughly one in 10 national weather observatories tracked temperatures above 40 deg C with one in Xinjiang reaching 48.7 deg C.

Dr Jia did not rule out the chance of more record-breaking heat, saying August could prove as warm as, or even hotter than, in recent years. REUTERS