The authorities must manage the shortage due to the decline in hydroelectric production that weighs on businesses and also affects individuals.
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Murderous floods in the northwest of the rather arid country, an exceptional drought along the usually fiery yangtsé, temperatures often greater than 40 degrees, noted in a third of the country’s weather stations … The climate change is sparing Not China. Seventeen people died and as much were missing on Wednesday, August 17, following the floods and the sudden rise in the waters in Datong, a mountainous Qinghai district, a province that borders Tibet. This drama intervened paradoxically when a large part of the country suffers from an exceptional drought and – from Shaanxi to the north in Guangdong to the south – temperatures never reached since the start of data recording, in 1961.
The drought mainly concerns the Hubei, Sichuan, Jiangxi, Anhui, Hunan and the Megapol of Chongqing. In these provinces that the Yangtsé crosses, temperatures are, according to the authorities, approximately six degrees of seasonal normal. And the water is now sorely lacking in it. In Sichuan, a province of 83 million inhabitants, the rivers saw their flow drop by 20 % to 50 %. In Wuhan (Hubei), the Yangtsé has never been so low. In the Jiangxi, the largest freshwater lake in the country, Lake Poyang, has, for lack of precipitation, lost three -quarters of its surface. It only extends over 737 square kilometers, compared to 2,203 in 2021 at the same period. The lake officially entered its dry season on August 6, 69 days earlier on average than during the last twenty years. In Jiangxi as in the other provinces, the drought that has lasted since mid-June should, according to experts, extend in September.
Result: hydroelectric production which provides 80 % of electricity to Sichuan and 17 % of the current produced in China is at its lowest. It dropped by 26 % in July compared to July 2021. In many cities and provinces, the authorities must now manage this shortage. A problem all the more delicate as this heat wave makes it even more necessary to use air conditioning, a big energy consumer, and that the demand for energy reaches records.
power cuts frequent
In Sichuan, 19 of the 21 cities called on Sunday, August 14, industrialists to stop their production for a week to promote residential areas. Among the companies affected: car manufacturers like Toyota or Volkswagen, Foxconn which assembles Apple iPads and the largest manufacturer of batteries for electric automobiles, Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL). Downstream, in Shanghai, Tesla complained about supply problems.
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