Covid Shocks Cut China’s Power Consumption for Second Month

China’s electricity consumption continued to fall in May, as pandemic restrictions hit industrial activity.

The country’s electricity usage in May dropped 1.3% from the same period a year ago to 671.6 gigawatt-hours, the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Wednesday. In the same period of 2021, that figure jumped 12.5%.

Broken down by industrial sectors, power consumption in the secondary and tertiary sectors went down by 0.5% and 4.4% year-on-year respectively, while usage in the primary sector was up 6.3%, the NEA data showed. Residential consumption also declined by 2.4%.