(Yicai Global) June 20 -- Hydroelectric power generation in China’s southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, which accounts for 80 percent of the country’s total, continued to drop in May because of droughts.

Sichuan’s hydropower generation fell 24.4 percent in May from a year earlier, following a 12.5 percent annual drop the previous month, data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed. Neighboring Yunnan’s hydropower generation plunged 43.1 percent last month from the same period last year, after slumping 41.9 percent on the year in April.

In the first four months, the average precipitation in Yunnan was 32.9 millimeters, down over 64 percent compared with the past years to the lowest in a decade. The province’s average temperature in the period rose 0.9 degrees Celsius to 14.1°C from the average in recent years.

Since the beginning of the year, major rivers in Sichuan have had insufficient inflows of water, Ma Guangwen, director of Sichuan University’s energy development research center, told Yicai Global. Sichuan and the southwestern municipality of Chongqing experienced 61-year high temperatures and extreme droughts last year, causing the decline in hydropower generation in the province, he pointed out.

The meteorological authority anticipated that rainfalls in some regions of Sichuan and Chongqing will be 20 percent to 50 percent less between June and August, Ma noted, adding that if so, Sichuan would face huge pressure regarding the energy supply in summer.

To tackle this challenge, the local coal-fired power generation needs to be strengthened, and other provinces, such as the northwestern ones, will need to assist Sichuan in providing electricity, Ma said.

Meanwhile, the two provinces’ thermal power generation increased significantly. Yunnan generated 7 billion kilowatt-hours of thermoelectricity last month, up 142 percent from a year earlier and setting a new 13-year high. Sichuan’s thermal power generation climbed 36.5 percent and 86.4 percent in April and May, respectively, from the same periods last year.

Sichuan’s power-supply structure relies too much on hydropower, Lu Zongxiang and others from the Energy Internet Think Tank Research Center of Tsinghua University said last year after Sichuan and Chongqing had to ration power in summer because the hot weather hindered hydropower generation.

The researchers thus suggested that Sichuan should add more stable power sources, such as thermal power, to its load center to make its power-supply system more solid when hydropower generation cannot produce enough energy.

Editor: Futura Costaglione