Central province Anhui announced on May 20th 2011 that it had started the second round of power rationing, cutting supply to 3,789 energy intensive companies, just 11 days after the first round that only limited supply to outdated producers.

As the local grid operator forecasts a prolonged shortage, authorities in Anhui are demanding big consumers to schedule maintenance between the beginning of June and the end of August, and in the meantime are looking for increased power supply from other provinces.

Forecast show that Anhui will see a maximum gap of 2.5GW this summer, mainly due to insufficient capacity. The province consumed 29.06bn KWh in the first quarter, rising 15.4% YoY, with consumption at the manufacturing sector increasing 30.46% to 20.3 billion KWh. By contrast, only 1.25GW new capacity will come online this year, an increase of 4.5% from 2010.

(Sourced from China Coal Times)