China is working to
tighten its supervision over the nation's power industry, hoping to
avoid similar blackouts that plunged millions of Europeans and
North Americans into darkness recently.
The nation is amending
the Electricity Law for the first time since its introduction eight
years ago. One of the major pushes is to strengthen management to
ensure the stability of power supplies and to regulate the
market.
The government hopes the
amendment can be completed by the end of the year.
Additionally, the
government is also looking at establishing an emergency-response
procedure for dealing with possible power problems.
The calls to create a
supervision framework have become increasingly loud since rolling
blackouts hit the United States, Canada, France and
Italy.
Experts say they cannot
rule out the possibility of something similar happening in China,
due to its fragile power system. It has become increasingly likely
as more than half of the nation has suffered from electricity
shortages this year.
And given December's
reform separation of power plants from grid firms, the ability to
control power supplies -- especially in cases of emergencies -- has
been weakened, experts say.
Top government
officials, including President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao,
have urged power companies and officials to learn from the
experience of other countries and set up a crisis-response
mechanism as soon as possible.
"One of the lessons we
learned from the blackouts in foreign countries is that we should
reinforce the supervision of the system to keep uniformed control
over transmission and distribution,'' said Shao Binren,
vice-chairman of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, the
industry watchdog.
Only in this way can
prompt action be taken once there are power failures, Shao
said.
However, according to
experts, the major difficulty is that the commission lacks enough
authority to supervise the industry.
Yu Yanshan, an official
with the commission's policy and regulations department, said
important roles such as approving electricity prices and the
construction of power plants are scattered among government
departments, including the National Development and Reform
Commission and the Ministry of Finance, which has diminished the
industry watchdog's clout.
"The obligation of
government departments and the commission is not clear,'' said
Yu.
Yu has called for
consolidation among government departments and the commission as
soon as possible to better regulate the industry.
(China Daily October 7,
2003)