The central government shut public lights in tourist areas

Beijing (AsiaNews/SCMP) - Premier Wen Jiabao has set out tougher guidelines on energy use to deal with the country's electricity shortage this summer.

"The mainland must promote conservation, not consumption, and that must remain a policy for the whole country for generations to come", he said during a visit to the State Power Distribution Centre on Monday.

He told distribution centre staff to limit supplies of power to polluting enterprises and businesses that were not promoted under the state's industrial policies.

"We must promote public conservation [throughout] society," he said.

Shortages have forced 24 provincial-level jurisdictions to impose brownouts and shut public lights displays in tourist areas, such as the Bund in Shanghai.

"Cities should promote the concept of conservation in public lighting."

He also urged power companies to keep a tight rein on electricity prices, and not to ramp them up.

Higher prices for household electricity were announced last month in seven cities and provinces, for commercial and industrial users. Mr Wen emphasised that there must be no exceptions to the energy strategy set out by the central government: all levels of government must follow it.

"[We have to] make sure that the basic needs of the public will not be affected. [We have to] make sure that electricity for agricultural uses is not affected and normal electricity uses of hospitals, schools, financial institutions, transportation hubs be unaffected," he said.

Despite an increase in the electricity supply in the first half of this year, the country still fell 30 million kW hours short of demand in the third quarter. Demand from industry has increased faster than new power plants can be built.

Electricity production from January to this month reached 1.156 trillion kW hours, up 18 per cent from the same period last year, according to the State Grid Corporation.

Of the increased production, about one-third was water-generated.

Meanwhile, Xinhua reported yesterday that the 214 billion yuan electricity infrastructure programme run by the State Grid Corporation since 1989 had saved rural dwellers over 40 billion yuan a year on their electricity bills.

Due to the high costs of running an electricity line and high deterioration and depreciation, rural people often pay more than three yuan per kW, twice as much as urban dwellers pay.

The improvement programmes reduced rate of the deterioration of the electricity grid by over a third.

 

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