The mainland power generation industry is expected to see major oversupply this year with projected capacity growth exceeding demand growth by about 3.5 percentage points, according to the China Electricity Council.
Eighty gigawatts of new capacity is expected to come on stream this year, said an official at the council's statistics department, which compiled a report previewing power market demand and supply.
Net capacity growth will be pared by the closure of small coal-fired plants' closure, to total 13 GW this year under a government target.
Assuming the goal is reached, the net increase will be 67 GW, or 8.45 per cent of total industry capacity of 792.53 GW at the end of last year. This will be faster than the 5 per cent demand growth projected by the council.
Power demand might continue to fall in the first half and only gradually bounced back to growth in the third quarter, led by developed coastal areas, the report said.
Mainland electricity consumption grew 5.23 per cent last year, the slowest since 2000 and down from 14.8 per cent in 2007.