A senior official on Thursday outlined serious problems that are hindering the development of China's electricity industry.

Wang Yeping, Vice Chairman of the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, said at an ongoing forum on China's energy strategy that coal-fired electricity still accounts for too large percentage of the total installed capacity of the country.

China's electricity installed capacity was 508.41 gigawatts at the end of 2005, with the percentage of coal-fired electricity installed capacity reaching 75.6 percent, hydropower, 22.9 percent and nuclear power, only 1.35 percent.

This worsened the tension between demand for coal and transportation and put more pressure on the environment, said Wang.

He said that compared with the sharp rise of China's electricity installed capacity, the development of power grids is sluggish. As a result, it is still difficult for supply to meet demand even if enough power has been generated.

With a low level of technology, China's electricity generation industry is characterized by high waste and low efficiency, said Wang.

China's average coal consumption in producing one kilowatt-hour electricity was 50 grams of coal higher than that of developed countries in 2003, while the water consumption was 40 percent more.

Moreover, without a strong regulatory and legal system and a mature market for resources distribution, China's electricity industry faces an uphill path, said Wang.

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