Local authorities in Northeast China's Liaoning province are requiring power generation enterprises to increase electricity supply and avoid power cuts to ensure people's livelihoods and safe production.

In response to earlier power rationing due to a shortage of power, the Liaoning Provincial Industry and Informatization Department held a power supply work meeting on Sunday.

It required power grid companies to extend power outage prediction times and early warnings to expand the notification scope and facilitate users to arrange power consumption plans in advance. It also required them to enhance the capacity to generate power during peak consumption times.

From Thursday to Saturday, Liaoning power grid launched three rounds of power rationing, which affected a large number of residents and enterprises.

On Friday, power rationing led to the shutdown of an exhaust system of a foundry company in the province's Liaoyang city, resulting in blast furnace gas poisoning.

A total of 23 workers are still under observation and treatment in local hospital as of press time, according to the city's publicity department.

“We have not met the power cut for more than 10 years. And I do hope this will not happen in the coming winter, which would be very challenging,” said Wang Youli, a resident in Shenyang who works for a manufacturing company.

Information from State Grid Shenyang Power Supply Company shows that seven out of 14 districts in Shenyang would face power cuts in the coming one week due to line maintenance or coordination work.

According to the Liaoning Provincial Industry and Informatization Department, a rising demand and limited supply are mainly responsible for power rationing.

On the one hand, the economy has developed rapidly and the demand for electricity has increased significantly in the past months. Data from Liaoning Provincial Bureau of Statistics show that the province's power consumption reached 171.797 billion kwh, a year-on-year increase of 9.47 percent by the end of August.

On the other hand, the power supply from inside and outside are both limited, which can no longer meet the power demand. Liaoning Power Grid disclosed that the external power supply has decreased significantly since Sept 10.

Furthermore, due to a sudden reduction of wind power, Liaoning's power supply gap further increased to a serious level from Thursday to Saturday.