Juiced: Slowdown Eases China's Power Problems

去年中国曾出现大范围的拉闸限电情况，今年的情况则是电力过剩。供电形势的突然改变是中国经济增长骤然大幅放缓的又一症状，也反映出中国制造业受到的打击有多么沉重。制造业消耗了中国的大部分电力。政府下属机构中国电力企业联合会说，预计全年都将维持电力过剩局面，不过政府经济刺激计划的实施有可能导致下半年用电量增加。中国电力企业联合会周四说，中国2008年的用电量仅增长了5.23%，远低于2007年14.8%的增幅，是8年来的最低增长幅度。该机构预计今年的用电量增速甚至会更低。经济学家们将用电量视为反映经济活跃程度的有效指标。但在2002至2006年期间，由于高耗电产业在经济中所占的比重越来越大，中国的能源需求增速一直快于经济增长速度。现在的情况则是电力需求增速慢于经济增长速度，因为增速较慢但需求稳定的居民用电占总用电量的比重在增长，而出口产品生产行业的用电量在下降。虽然电力过剩对中国的电力企业来说是个坏消息，用电量下降会降低它们的利润率，但对中国的电网来说这却是个好消息。多年来，中国的电网建设一直无法完全跟上电力需求迅速增长的步伐。去年的雪灾使一些重要的电力传输线路受到破坏，从而导致电网大面积瘫痪，当时正是农民工大规模返乡过春节的时候，许多发电厂的煤炭库存都降至了非常低的水平。政府的大量投资一定程度上将解决电网建设滞后问题。作为经济刺激计划的一部分，政府计划今年投资近850亿美元用于电力项目建设，略高于去年的投资额。政府投资预计将重点投向全国电网的升级改造，建设特高压输电线路，以绕开早已成为电力供应瓶颈的老旧电力基础设施。中国的发电厂正以平均每周两座的速度增长，但陈旧的电力传输网却无力将足够的电力从煤炭资源丰富的内陆地区送往较为富裕的城市和出口加工业密集的沿海地区。Shai Oster（“中国日志”（China Journal）关注全球第一人口大国的发展变化，《华尔街日报》获奖团队数十位记者倾情献稿，Sky Canaves主笔。欢迎读者发送邮件至chinajournal@wsj.com或在下面评论栏中发表评论和建议。）


Last year, China suffered widespread blackouts. This year, there's a glut of power.The abrupt change is yet another symptom of China's sudden and deep economic slowdown, and reflects how it's been especially hard on the manufacturing industry that used the bulk of the nation's electricity. The government-affiliated China Electricity Council said it expects the glut to last all year, though the impact of the government's stimulus package could result in growing use towards the second half.The CEC said yesterday that 2008 power consumption grew only 5.23%, far below the 14.8% recorded in 2007. That's the slowest growth in eight years, and the CEC expects growth will slow even further this year.Economist see electricity consumption as a close proxy for economic activity. But between 2002 and 2006, China's energy demand grew faster than the economy because of a shift to power-hungry industry. Now, electricity demand is growing slower than the economy, as demand shifts to the slower-but-steady growth in residential users and away from export producing factories.While the oversupply is bad news for China's electric utilities, which face squeezed profit margins from falling usage rates, it's good news for China's power grid.For years, the grid has strained to keep up with surging demand. The system broke down last year when freak snowstorms knocked out key power lines just as migrant workers started heading home for the annual Chinese Spring Festival Holiday, and many power plants had very low stockpiles of coal.The government hoes investments will fix part of the problem. It plans to spend just under $85 billion on power projects this year, part of government economic stimulus plans. That is a little bit more than was spent last year.Spending is likely to focus more on upgrading the national power grid, building an electricity superhighway of high voltage lines to bypass a lot of the aging infrastructure that has bottlenecked power supplies in the past. China has been adding the equivalent of about two power plants a week, but the old grid didn't have the capacity to carry enough electricity from coal-rich interior to the richer cities and the export-oriented coast.Shai Oster