The cold spell that left Asian countries scrambling to buy enough natural gas for heating and electricity generation earlier this month made headlines and spurred a massive rally in spot gas prices on the regional market. It also highlighted a problem with China’s electricity consumption: it grew too much, too fast. Reuters’ John Kemp noted in a recent column on China’s electricity consumption that in November, this increased by 9 percent on an annual basis, according to official data. That’s despite the global pandemic that kept most other economies hobbled in November. China was the exception, with business activity booming, which to a large extent accounted for the surge in power consumption—one of the highest over the last ten years. This surge in business activity coincided with an increase in household electricity use, too, despite the fact the weather in November was milder than usual. This led to electricity […]