Tens of thousands of factory workers in Shanghai have been ordered to work nights because of power shortages caused by the rapid growth of China’s economy.
Shanghai has also urged shop owners to turn down thermostats and conserve electricity.
The cuts will embarrass local officials trying to attract foreign investors to China’s business capital by presenting an image of a modern, well-equipped city.
They also presage a battle for energy supplies in east Asia.
Shanghai is at the forefront of a surge that within two years will enable China to replace Britain as the world’s fourth-largest economy. Its streets are filled with spectacular, modern constructions, such as the 88-storey Jinmao tower, China’s tallest building, with all the power demands of lighting, air-conditioning, and lifts.
Shanghai is so advanced that it boasts the world’s first commercial magnetic levitation train. It is also a heavy consumer of electricity.
Other energy sources are in demand too: as personal wealth grows, the number of cars on the city’s roads is rising by 25% a year.
On Thursday the city’s government acknowledged that unless it takes drastic action to overcome its energy problems the trains might not run, and streets lamps and skyscrapers might be blacked out.
With midwinter approaching, Jiao Yang, the city spokesperson, said that Shanghai is two million kilowatts short of the 11,6-million it needs to meet peak demand. Although the city is buying electricity from the newly opened Three Gorges dam, and plans to purchase an extra one million kilowatts from other regions, it still faces shortfalls.
Accordingly, Shanghai will shut down the most inefficient energy users — small metal, steel-alloy, and calcium carbide workshops — and make its power-intensive industries switch production to a nightshift from midnight to 8am.
Located just south of the Yangtze, Shanghai is considered too temperate to justify communal heating schemes for apartment blocks or houses, but with temperatures falling to as low as zero during the winter, many homes and businesses can now afford to buy their own electric heaters.
City officials said individuals and private enterprises should do all they could to conserve power. The gleaming new shopping malls were identified as the potential source of a saving of 0,4-milllion kilowatts if they lowered temperatures.
Power pricing will be changed to encourage the city’s 17-million people to use less energy during the day.
The situation recurs throughout China; many cities have absorbed a huge influx of migrant workers from the countryside, and their increasingly affluent populations are consuming more and more power. Sales of televisions, air conditioners and computers are growing. Factories have increased production on the back of a 30% increase in business investment earlier this year.
In all, power consumption is expected to rise 15% this year to 1,88-trillion kilowatts, according to the national power grid.
More than half of China’s provinces have been hit by shortages this year, and the government has warned that energy shortfalls could hinder the economic growth.
Although generating plants are being built, they cannot meet the growing demand for electricity.
According to the China Economic Times, the shortages will worsen next year, and output will remain insufficient until 2006.
China was a net exporter of energy for three decades, but its economic growth has far outstripped domestic production of oil and gas.
Nuclear plants account for only 1%, pushing up consumption of crude oil by 6% per year, and lifting China into the ranks of the world’s biggest oil importers.
The energy crisis is not confined to China, however; the United States and Europe have been hit by blackouts recently, and questions remain over Japan’s ability to acquire enough energy to remain the world’s second biggest economy.
The US lockhold on oil fields in the Middle East has left China and Japan tussling this year over supplies from the Angarsk oil field, near Lake Baikal in Russia, by offering political and economic incentives to influence the routing of a pipeline to export oil. — Guardian Unlimited Â