China's Electricity Consumption up 14.7% in August

BEIJING, Sep. 16 -- China's power consumption in August reached 397.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), up 14.69 percent year on year, the National Energy Administration (NEA) announced Tuesday.

This amount was 2 percent higher than in July, according to a statement on the NEA's website.

The August data brought total power use in the first eight months of the year to more than 2.79 trillion kWh, up 19.34 percent compared with the same period last year. The growth rate was down 0.91 percentage points from the first seven months of 2010.

Also, power use in primary industries grew 5.88 percent year on year to 11.2 billion kWh in August, industrial use of electricity was 287.8 kWh, up 14.85 percent, while the tertiary industry consumed 46.7 billion kWh of power, up 18.27 percent.

Household power consumption rose 12.78 percent from one year earlier to 51.7 billion kWh in August, according to the statement.