Back in the old days they used to be common in China: Forced blackouts due to insufficient power from a creaky national generation system.

Such outages have largely become a thing of the past as China cruised into the 21st century with major infrastructure upgrades, including expansion of its power-generating capacity to fuel its breakneck growth. But suddenly a growing number of forced blackouts are popping up on China’s grid, the result of a confluence of cold weather with demand from a strongly rebounding economy from Covid-19.

The shortages have made national and even global headlines over the last two weeks, as several cities have been forced to restrict electricity use by factories and offices.

In one case that caught global attention, pedestrians in the eastern China port city of Yiwu, known as the world’s largest small-commodity trading hub, were left in the dark on the evening of Dec. 14 as streetlights didn’t turn on as usual in some areas. The lights would remain out the next two nights under a government decision to “reduce power consumption and pollution.”

The short supply has been compounded by the recently soaring price of coal, which fuels about half of China’s electricity generation. Domestic coal supplies have been squeezed by production halts following a series of mining accidents, a plunge in imports and a broader campaign to cut coal-fired power generation to fulfill the country’s emissions commitments.

To read the full story on China’s latest bout with forced blackouts, click here.

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)