Global warming 'could jeopardise electricity imports from mainland to Hong Kong'
In the final part of a series on the city's energy mix, we examine the impact that global warming could have on electricity supply
A big long-term question hangs over Hong Kong's proposal to import power from the mainland: climate change.
Projections indicate southwestern provinces that make a major contribution of hydropower to the China Southern Power Grid could lose up to 10 per cent of their water within three decades because of droughts caused by global warming.
And that, says a mainland environment scholar who has studied the likely effects, would have a big impact on the ability of the provinces, principally Sichuan and Guizhou , to generate electricity.
"If the available water resources decrease by 10 per cent, it would considerably affect hydropower potential and hydropower generation," Professor Tang Qiuhong said in an e-mail reply to questions from the South China Morning Post.
Tang, an academic with the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said Yunnan province would also be affected by global warming, although to a lesser extent.
His comment comes as Hong Kong ponders the option of importing 30 per cent of its electricity demand - estimated at 15 billion kilowatt-hours by 2023 - from the southern grid versus an option of boosting its own natural gas-fired electricity generation from the present 22 per cent to 60 per cent.