China's power grid is likely to be strained this summer due to steady growth in peak demand, higher exposure to extreme weather, and the intermittent nature of renewable energy, officials from China Electricity Council (CEC) said.

Wang Yixuan, director of the statistics and data center at CEC, said national maximum power load is expected to increase by around 80 GW this year to 1,370 GW under normal weather conditions. However, long periods of extreme heat could drive the peak load up by 100 GW.

Parts of southern, eastern and central China may experience tight supply during peak hours, Wang said, urging better fuel supply security, acceleration of key power projects, and improved demand-side management.

Zhang Lin, director of planning and development at CEC, said China's power system faces pressure from demand growth outstripping supply capacity and limited flexibility to cope with supply-demand fluctuations. Renewable energy has expanded rapidly but its inherent intermittency adds to the challenge of balancing the grid.

Authorities are looking to strengthen demand-side regulation, including load shifting, curtailment, and interruptible loads, as well as process optimization and management improvement, Zhang said.

China aims to build a more flexible and interactive power system where supply and demand can dynamically match each other, Zhang said. This could be achieved by raising flexibility at industrial loads, guiding electric vehicle charging, aggregating distributed energy storage systems, and advancing long-duration energy storage technologies.

According to CEC data, coal inventory at the country's major power plants reached 113 million tonnes as of June 4, up 21.35 million tonnes from a year ago and the highest in four years. While coal stocks provide some supply security, declining quality could curb power output, the CEC said, urging more quality control and reform of the current mechanism that prices coal by heat value alone.

(Writing by Alex Guo  Editing by Harry Huo)
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