China's electricity consumption in 2009 grew 5.96 percent year on year to 3.643 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWhs), the National Energy Administration (NEA) said in a statement on its website.

The growth rate was 0.47 percentage points higher than that in 2008.  Consumption in the primary industry sector accounted for 94.7 billion kWh, up 7.86 percent year on year. The secondary industry consumption rose 4.15 percent to 2.7 trillion kWh and the tertiary sector demand was up 12.11 percent to 392.1 billion kWh.  Residential power use rose by 11.87 percent to 457.1 billion kWh.

It is expected that China's GDP growth would be higher than 8%.  As such, the 6% increase of electricity consumption indicates China's improvement of energy efficiency.  Looking at the above number in detail, the result is even better.  As can be seen from the data above, most of the consumption came from the tertiary industry and consumer side, meaning significant energy reduction per unit GDP in the energy-intensive secondary industry.

Investment in power construction projects increased by 755.84 billion yuan (110.7 billion U.S. dollars) in 2009, a rise of almost 20 percent. But investment in coal-fired power projects declined by 11 percent while that in nuclear projects rose 75 percent and in wind power by 44 percent, according to the NEA statement. 

By the end of 2009, the country's total installed power generation capacity was 874.07 million kilowatts, an annual rise of 10 percent, the statement said.