Inventory of electricity consumption in the entire society in August

Recently, the National Energy Administration announced that in August the entire society used 502.5 billion kWh of electricity, down 1.5% year-on-year. Compared with the 3% growth in electricity consumption in July, the growth rate dropped by 4.5 percentage points. Compared with the same period in August 2013 (13.7%), the growth rate decreased by 15.2 percentage points. At the same time, this is the first time that social power consumption growth has been lost since March 2013.

Changes in electricity consumption in the entire society from January 2013 to August 2014 Note: The Spring Festival factors from January to February have a significant impact on the increase in electricity consumption during the current period. Therefore, the cumulative increase from January to February has historically been calculated.

According to the data, from January to August, the country's total social power consumption was 364.04 billion kWh, an increase of 4.0% year-on-year, and the growth rate was 0.9 percentage point lower than that of the previous seven months. In terms of sub-industry, the electricity consumption of the primary industry increased by 0.3% year-on-year. Compared with the previous seven months, the 2.1% decline registered a strong rebound; the second industry’s electricity consumption increased by 3.9% year-on-year, and the tertiary industry’s electricity consumption increased by 5.8% year-on-year, respectively, slowing down from the previous seven months.

Among them, the electricity consumption of the first industry in August increased by 11.6% year-on-year, the electricity consumption of the second industry decreased by 1.5% year-on-year, and the electricity consumption of the tertiary industry increased by 1.1% year-on-year, 3.5% lower than the 4.6% growth rate in July.

It is noteworthy that the industrial electricity consumption in August fell by 1.6% year-on-year, and the growth rate was down by 4.5% from July. Among them, the growth rate of heavy industry electricity consumption slowed from 3.2% in July to a decline of 2.2% in August. In August, the electricity consumption of residents in the city fell by 5.7% year-on-year, far below the 0.5% year-on-year growth rate in July.

In this regard, some industry analysts believe that the combination of factors such as the slowdown in the growth of high-energy-consuming electricity and the lack of high-temperature weather in the summer caused the use of electricity data in August to be less optimistic.

According to the Jinghua Times, the slowdown in electricity consumption is related to the slowdown in industrial electricity consumption. At present, China's industrial electricity consumption accounts for 70% of the total electricity consumption in the society. Among this, the consumption of electricity for high-energy-consuming industries such as steel accounts for about half of the electricity consumption for industrial use. At present, the entire industry is slowing down, which reduces the demand for electricity. At the same time, the state attaches great importance to energy conservation and emission reduction, and also significantly reduces electricity consumption in high energy-consuming industries.

At the same time, Ouyang Changyu, deputy secretary-general of the China Electricity Council, said in an interview with the Economic Information Daily that the main reason for the negative growth in electricity consumption in the entire society was the relatively low temperature and industrial slowdown in August this year, but it was in contrast with July. In comparison, the contribution rate of economic factors has increased, which indicates that the economic growth in August further deteriorated. During the period of economic shift shift, the growth of basic industries such as raw materials is not bad, but the proportion has been reduced, and the growth momentum of emerging industries is insufficient. It is in the stage of fluctuation adjustment and has not really picked up.

In addition, since 2014, the China Electricity Council has continuously lowered its expected growth in electricity consumption. “It is expected that the growth rate of electricity consumption in the third quarter will be between 3% and 4%. Now, it may only be about 2%, but it will increase overall. Expected speed is also reduced from the previous 6% or so to about 5%. It is expected that in the next few years, China's electricity demand growth will maintain single-digit growth.” Ouyang Changyu stressed.

As a barometer of economic performance, the decrease in electricity consumption is consistent with the weakening of economic data in August. According to Southern Weekly's previous report, many economic indicators all showed a downward trend in August: In August, the industrial added value of China's above-scale industries increased by 6.9% year-on-year, 2.1 percentage points lower than that in July.

From January to August 2014, the national fixed asset investment (excluding rural households) increased nominally by 16.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate decreased by 0.5% from January to July; the private fixed asset investment increased nominally by 19% year-on-year, with an increase rate of 1-7. The month fell 0.6%; the national investment in real estate development increased nominally by 13.2% year-on-year, and the growth rate decreased by 0.5% from January to July; the area of ​​commercial housing sold was 649.87 million square meters, which was 8.3% lower than the same period of last year, and the decline rate was 0.7% higher than that in January-July. percentage point.

In addition, the August CPI fall back to 2%, far below market expectations; PPI is negative for 30 consecutive months. The growth rate of the automotive and electronics industries began to decline, and the country’s electricity generation decreased by 2.2% year-on-year, which was the first negative growth in 2014.

According to the aforementioned Economic Reference News, Cao Yuanzheng, chief economist of the Bank of China, believes that the Chinese economy continues to exist in an objectively downward direction, but it is unlikely that there will be a hard landing. The Chinese economy is undergoing a profound transformation and entering the new normal. It can be said that it is "a bit of a growth rate." At present, the Chinese economy will maintain a rate of 7%, inflation will not exceed 2.5%, the economy is average, there is downward pressure, there will be continuous fine-tuning, and the purpose of the adjustment is to hope that new industries emerge, new structures take place, new growth The emergence of power.