(Yicai) Dec. 4 -- Southwestern Sichuan and Yunnan provinces, which account for around 43 percent of China’s hydroelectricity generation, are looking to diversify their power generation sources in order to guarantee electricity supply as increased factory activity and long periods of drought put pressure on its hydroelectricity output.

The construction of more secure and reliable power generation systems needs to be accelerated to reduce the reliance on hydropower, Sichuan Governor Huang Qiang said at a recent conference.

Sichuan province used to be solely a generator of power, but now it also buys electricity, Huang said. Alternative sources of power such as wind and solar energy should be increased.

There have been changes in the supply and demand of electricity in Yunnan province, Governor Wang Yubo said.

Sichuan’s power shortage is due to a big jump in demand caused by both industrial development and accelerated urbanization, Ma Guangwen, deputy head and secretary-general of Sichuan Energy Association, told Yicai. Also, no new power generation sources have been established, and the amount of electricity distributed outside the province needs to be guaranteed.

Until last year, the biggest problem the two provinces faced in terms of power generation was oversupply. They even had to keep some hydropower plants idle as they could not use up all the electricity.

But since 2018, Yunnan and Sichuan have been encouraging energy-hungry industries such as electrolytic aluminum, polysilicon and battery producers as well as Big Data companies to settle in the two provinces to try and use up the excess hydropower capacity.

But in the case of extreme events, such as a prolonged dry spell, the hydropower stations struggle to generate sufficient electricity. Last year, drought hit southwest China and both provinces had to introduce power rationing, forcing some businesses to halt production.

And this year does not look like it will be much better. Since last month, eastern parts of Yunnan as well as the west and south of southwestern Guizhou province have experienced extremely dry weather, according to Zhang Jiancheng, deputy director of the National Meteorological Center.

Yunnan’s electrolytic aluminum sector, which will churn out one fifth of the country’s total at over 8 million tons a year once all the capacity comes online, is being affected by six rounds of power rationing in Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous prefectures that started on Nov. 1, according to information released in late October.

Sichuan's grid needs an additional installed capacity of over 50 million kilowatts by 2025, according to the five-year-plan issued by the province at the end of last year.

The province plans to boost the proportion of wind-and-solar-generated electricity to 19.3 percent by 2025 from 6.3 percent in 2021 and thermal power should climb to 16.6 percent from 15.9 percent, the report said. This will allow the ratio of hydropower to fall to 64.1 percent from 77.8 percent.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Kim Taylor