China’s power crisis ‘man-made’, and miscalculations by Beijing serve as ‘a very painful lesson’, coal insiders say

While conceding that carbon-emission targets will ‘absolutely benefit’ China, critics allege there are problems with how those targets are implemented

‘Forced caps on supply’ of coal is not the answer, they say, adding that China must reduce its reliance on fossil fuels by using cleaner energy sources

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Chinese authorities have capped the amount of coal that China’s miners have been allowed to dig up. Photo: AFP

Published: 10:15pm, 10 Nov 2021Updated: 11:47pm, 10 Nov 2021

China does not have a shortage of coal, and the nationwide power cuts were a “man-made crisis” and “a big mistake”, according to domestic coal industry insiders who blame Beijing for its miscalculations in coal-production planning and its antiquated national power pricing system.

Chen Weidong, the former chief energy researcher with the China Institute of Energy Economics at state-owned energy giant China National Offshore Oil Corporation, said at a virtual energy forum in Beijing that there was no basis for the coal-shortage argument.

“China, in fact, has no shortage of power generation capacity, coal resources nor production capacity. How could China suddenly descend into power rationing? This is a man-made crisis,” Chen alleged at Tuesday’s forum.

Chinese authorities also excessively capped the amount of coal that China’s miners have been allowed to dig up, and producing less than full capacity has created a supply gap, Tao Guangyuan, executive director of the Sino-German Renewable Energy Centre, said at the same event.

To hit carbon-emission targets, China must be more sophisticated with its energy planning by raising energy efficiency and by using cleaner energy to naturally reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, rather than imposing forced caps on supply, he said.