Beijing's maximum power load in this summer will reach about 13 million kilowatts, up 20 percent over the same period last year.

Air-conditioning is expected to consume 4.9 million kilowatts of electricity, or 38 percent of the maximum power load, according to information from North China Power Grid (NCPG).

The maximum power load will reach 33 million kilowatt in the Jingjintang Grid which supply power to Beijing, Tianjin, and Tangshan city in neighboring Hebei province, NCPG said.

"Power supply can meet the demand but continuous hot and humid weather can result in a 1.1 million kw power shortage in the Jingjintang Grid." said Yinqiong, vice president of NCPG.

In order to ease the power supply bottleneck, NCPG plans to invest 40.2 billion yuan (US$5.22 billion) on projects to increase the power grid's transformation capacity from 2006 to 2010. This year, 8.3 billion yuan (US$1.1 billion) will be invested.

According to the statistics of the corporation, the maximum power load in the capital city has already reached 10.14 million kilowatts, up 7.2 percent over the same period last year.

(Xinhua News Agency May 13, 2007)