China would not face electricity power shortfalls in the second half of the year an economic official said Thursday.

Zhang Guobao, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said power supplies could meet demand even in power-hungry areas such as the economically dynamic Zhejiang Province in east China.

As a matter of fact there'd been no significant power shortfalls in the first six months of the year he explained at a press conference at the Information Office of the State Council.

Zhang said the government would accelerate efforts to close small, coal-fired units which were costly and produced heavy pollution.

Coal-fired generation units with a combined capacity of 15 million kw would be closed in the coming five years, he revealed. He said that in broad terms the nation's power shortages had eased somewhat.

China's total power production capacity has reached 531 million kw and more than 70 million kw of newly installed capacity was expected to go into production this year. In the second half of the year China's power supply and demand had the potential to balance out and ease the tight situation which had been first encountered in June 2002, said Zhang.

About 250 million kw of power station projects are currently under construction in China. The new capacity amounted to 22.39 million kw from January to April this year and projects with a total combined capacity of 29.55 million kw were approved from January to May.

Zhang said China's power supply for the first four months had reached 817.5 billion kw/hour, up 11.1 percent over the same period of last year, including hydro electricity of 92.7 billion kw/hour, coal-fired power of 704.9 billion kwh and nuclear power of 16.6 billion kwh.

The electricity consumption for the first four months came to 846.6 billion kw/hour which was a rise of 12.33 percent year-on-year.

(Xinhua News Agency June 8, 2006)