China Power-1Q13:Power Demand Growth Lowered to 4.3%

In 1Q13, power demand growthslowed to 4.3% yoy from 5.5% in Jan-Feb 2013, andgrowth from primary, secondary/industrial, tertiary, andresidential amounted to -0.3%, 3.8%, 9.2%, and 3.1%,respectively. On a monthly basis, power demand growthdropped to 1.94% in March 2013, in line with ourexpectation of 2%, and better than the 0% growthquoted by the media. With secondary/industrial growthof 2.9% yoy (7.9% in Jan-Feb), growth in March wasdragged by the negative growth at primary (8.4%),tertiary (0.4%), and residential (0.1%). Some maybelieve the slowdown in power demand in March relatedto Two Conferences with government changes. As well,power generation was 1,182bn kWh in 1Q13, up 2.9%yoy vs. 3.4% recorded in Jan-Feb 2013. Thermalutilization declined 7.2% to 1,231 hours, while hydroutilization remained strong with 598 hours, up 16.1%yoy, in the same period. New installation in 1Q13amounted to 14.5GW (up 56.7% yoy) with 9.3GWthermal (up 42.7% yoy) and 2.9GW hydro (129.9% yoy),due to a low base of installation growth in 2012.