Chinese factories shut down after drought hits power supplies

Factories in China’s south west have shut down and a city imposed rolling blackouts after reservoirs to generate hydropower ran low in a worsening drought.

Companies in Sichuan province, including makers of solar panels and cement, closed or reduced production after they were ordered to ration power for up to five days, according to news reports Wednesday.

That came after reservoir levels fell and power demand for air conditioning surged in scorching temperatures.

“Leave power for the people,” said an order from the provincial government dated on Tuesday.

The power company in Dazhou, a city in Sichuan with 3.4 million people, imposed two-and-a-half hour power cuts this week and expanded that on Wednesday to three hours, according to the Shanghai news outlet The Paper.

The newspaper, Securities Times, said office buildings in Chengdu, the provincial capital, were told to shut off air conditioning.

The shutdowns add to challenges for the ruling Communist Party as Xi Jinping, the country’s most powerful leader in decades, prepares to try to break with tradition and award himself a third five-year term as leader at a meeting in October or November.

Growth in factory output and retail sales weakened in July, setting back China’s economic recovery after Shanghai and other industrial centres were shut down starting in late March to fight coronavirus outbreaks.

The economy grew by just 2.5% compared to a year earlier in the first half of 2022, less than half the official annual goal of 5.5%.

Areas across central and northern China ordered emergency measures to ensure drinking water supplies after summer rain was as little as half normal levels.

The official Xinhua News Agency said fire engines carried water to two villages near Chongqing in the southwest.

Hundreds of thousands of hectares of crops across central and northern China wilted due to lack of water and high temperatures, according to the government. Some areas reported the summer growing season a failure.

The weather agency has warned temperatures in some areas could spike to 40C.

A subsidiary of Guoguang Co that makes pesticide and fertiliser closed from Monday through at least Saturday, according to a company announcement through the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Makers of solar power equipment in Sichuan including Tongwei Solar and GCL-Poly Energy said they received notices to ration power.

Tongwei said the “power cut and production shutdown have not had much impact”, the business news outlet East Money reported.

China faced similar strains last year when Guangdong province in the south east, one of the world’s most important manufacturing centres, ordered factories to shut down after hydropower reservoirs ran low due to sparse rain.

The government has allocated millions for drought relief in Hebei and Shanxi provinces and the Inner Mongolia region in the north and Liaoning province in the north east, according to Xinhua.

“Some small and medium-size rivers are so dry that they have stopped flowing,” the report said.