Since the beginning of this year, the economy of our country has been steadily improving and the energy consumption continues to pick up. It is better than the beginning of the year. The coal consumption in the first three quarters turned negative from positive.
According to the data of the National Bureau of Statistics, China's GDP has remained at between 6.7% and 6.9% for nine consecutive quarters. The national energy consumption growth rate also increased from 1% in 2015 and 1.4% in 2016 to 2.8% in the first three quarters of this year. Correspondingly, the growth rate of electricity consumption increased from 0.5% and 5% to 6.9%. Coal consumption ended a three-year negative growth. The first three quarters of natural gas growth of about 15.7% for the first time in four years to achieve double-digit growth.
Specifically for coal, coal consumption in the first three quarters was about 2.81 billion tons, driven by factors such as industrial production recovery and thermal power generation. Except for building materials industry, the coal used in power, steel and chemical industries all showed positive growth. The total coal consumption of the four major industries accounted for 85% of the total coal consumption, an increase of 1.6 percentage points over the previous year.
At the same time, structural adjustment accelerated. The growth rate of steel, nonferrous metals, building materials and chemicals in the four major energy-intensive industries slowed down significantly. The proportion of electricity consumption declined for 7 years in a row, with a total decrease of 3.9 percentage points. The steel industry share of total electricity consumption decreased by 3.7 percentage points.
As the supply-side structural reform progresses further, the energy supply quality also improves. The smooth progress of coal to capacity production to prevent and mitigate the risk of overcapacity of coal power to achieve initial results. In the first three quarters, the investment in coal-fired power generation by major power generation enterprises in the country dropped by 25% over the same period of last year.
In addition, the National Energy Board informed that the development of coal power is not optimistic. In 2016, coal utilization hours were only 4250 hours. It is estimated that at the end of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan", the national power supply will be generally loose with the risk of overcapacity of coal-fired power generation.
