ChinaDaily : Trains stopped in their tracks

With people turning up the heat indoors to fight the extreme cold across the country, many provinces are reducing electricity supply due to the shortage of coal.

Since December, power has been cut or reduced to more than 2,000 factories in Wuhan, Hubei province, to ensure supply for household use, while most parts of the south face electricity shortages, Han Xiaoping, an energy analyst, said yesterday.

With power demand surging this winter, coal stocks in 349 power plants across the nation have decreased to around 27 million tons, or barely enough for 12 days of generation, while stocks in the north have declined to less than a week, the Shanghai Securities News reported last month.

Generally, coal stocks should be enough for at least 20 days, Han said.

But in Hubei province, things are much worse. The local electricity supplier faces a shortage of 760,000 tons of coal before March this year, Yang Yong, assistant chief engineer at Hubei Electric Power Company, told China Business News yesterday.

Nearly 2.4 gigawatts, or some 17 percent of the coal-fueled power generation capacity in Hubei, has been shut down due to coal shortage and there is a risk of even more output cuts, the newspaper reported yesterday.

Electricity suppliers in the north are also facing a great challenge with the temperature falling drastically through the earlier part of this week.

In the next 10 days, temperatures could fall to around -32 C in the far north and another cold wave will sweep the region around Friday, bringing gales and severe cold, the national forecaster said.

Experts predicted that the power shortage would last till the end of this winter.

Despite the current coal shortage, there are no signs that the cold spell would trigger the weeks-long disruptions and power cuts that hit some parts of southern China in unusually icy weather in 2008.

And in Europe, the weakest link of the Natural Gas supply network is already running into trouble:

Express : GAS SUPPLIES RUNNING OUT AS BRITAIN SHIVERS

The National Grid yesterday issued only its ­second-ever warning that demand for energy is threatening to outstrip available supplies unless industry quickly slashes its consumption and more gas is rushed in from abroad.

The alert prompted the wholesale cost of gas to rocket by 70 per cent and raised fears that businesses and households could soon be hit by power cuts if the freezing weather persists as forecast for the rest of the month.

[...]

Gas was flowing out of the UK's main storage facility at Rough, 18 miles off the Yorkshire coast, at a record rate yesterday as energy needed for homes and businesses came very close to the previous record high.

Analysts said the freeze combined with the post-New Year return to work created a surge which put intense pressure on supplies and added to the need for expensive additional gas to be pumped in from mainland Europe.Experts have estimated that Britain only has enough gas storage for 15 days so in times of high demand we have to rely on imports.

Ian Parrett, of energy analysts Inenco, warned that the country was in danger of being held to ransom over gas prices and blamed a lack of investment in storage plants.

"We're faced with a shortfall of supply created by a combination of the cold weather and the number of people returning to work and putting the heating back on putting extra demand on the system," he said. "Some big companies on interruptible gas contracts risk a reduction or cessation of their supply."

Britain and Ireland should face even lower temperatures later in the month. The last time the Gas Supply Balancing Alert was issued was in March of 2006, but then Spring was at the door. The British electric grid will be tested seriously this time, it will be seen either it can properly feed household demand without gas or not. I wish them good luck.

Telegraph : Britain facing one of the coldest winters in 100 years, experts predict

Paul Michaelwaite, forecaster for NetWeather.tv, said: "It is looking like this winter could be in the top 20 cold winters in the last 100 years.

"It's going to be very cold the for the next 10 days and although there could be a milder spell at some stage the indications are that the second half of the month will be even colder."

MeteoGroup's temperature forecast for this fortnight: