China's fossil fuelled power rose to an 11-month peak in July

China's fossil fuelled power generation, mainly coal, increased in July to its highest level since August 20,24, according to official data released on Friday. The record-breaking heat also pushed the power demand up to new records across a large part of China.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, fossil-fuelled electricity generation, also known as thermal power in China, and mainly generated by coal, with a small portion from natural gas was up 4.3% from a year ago to 602 billion Kilowatt-hours.

The peak of thermal power usage is typically in the winter and summer when cooling and heating systems are most prevalent. Grid operators must then turn to dispatchable energy sources such as coal and gas to meet this demand. The winter of 2024-2025 was unusually warm and the demand for coal was low.

Grid operators also would have used thermal power more because hydropower, China’s second largest power source, fell by 9.8% in July 2024 due to drought conditions which limited dam inflows.

The fossil-fuelled electricity use is expected to decline this year, compared with 2024. This could be the first time since a decade. Thermal power dropped by 1.3% in the first seven-month period, due to increased competition from solar and wind.

Statistics also show that China generated 926.7 billion kWh of electricity in July, an increase of 3.1% over the same period last.

However, the National Bureau of Statistics figures tend to underestimate total generation, especially from renewables. This is because they only include industrial companies with revenues of at least $20 million ($2.8 million) per year from their primary operations.

The National Energy Administration will release more detailed data later this month. (Reporting and editing by Kate Mayberry; Colleen Waye)

(source: Reuters)