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Opinion
David Fickling

China’s Power Crisis Will Affect Industries Worldwide

Dependency on Chinese electricity leaves everyone else open to inflationary pressures. Beijing needs to incentivize renewables even more. 

A new coal mine shaft is developed in China’s Shanxi Province.

A new coal mine shaft is developed in China’s Shanxi Province.

Photographer: Nelson Ching/Bloomberg

A villain is emerging in China’s efforts to rein in its energy prices: inefficient, power-hungry industry.

With flooding in the coal hub of Shanxi province driving prices up to 1,508 yuan ($234) a metric ton even as the government tries to kickstart extra production, further measures are clearly needed to prevent more generators cutting off their turbines and causing blackouts through the cold of northern China’s winter. That means a crackdown on the factories that still consume the lion’s share of electricity.