Power goes up on Earth Hour in Nanjing

Earth Hour, a worldwide event encouraging households and businesses to turn off their non-essential lights for one hour to raise awareness about environmental issues, failed to save power Saturday in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province. It was the first time that Earth Hour failed to save electricity there since it came to China in 2008, media reports said.

Nanjing's electricity consumption was 4.85 million kWh at 8:30 pm Saturday, yet after Earth Hour started it increased to 4.9 million kWh at 8:45 pm, the Nanjing-based newspaper Modern Express reported, citing the Jiangsu Nanjing Power Supply Company. The report did not mention why the power consumption went up after many buildings in Nanjing voluntarily cut power.

An anonymous staff from the State Grid Corporation of China told the Global Times a possible reason of Nanjing's abnormal electricity consumption during the Earth Hour is that not enough citizens followed the requirements. "Half past eight is the peak time of electricity consumption, perhaps the number of people who turned on their lights after 8:30 exceeded the number of people who switched off their lights," he said.

According to the Xinhua News Agency, 86 Chinese cities participated in the Earth Hour in 2011 and 124 cities participated in 2012. Statistics from State Grid show that in 2012 Earth Hour helped saved 138,600 kWh electricity in Beijing and 50,000 kWh in Dalian.

The Chinese public has been skeptical of the event, with some calling it a mere show or even "a farce."

"Calling on ordinary citizens to turn off lights is a move that is completely off-focus. By shifting the responsibility to citizens who promote Earth Hour somehow let the government get away easily," Zhou Xiaoyun, an online whistle-blower wrote in his Weibo microblog on Sunday.

Earth Hour organizers responded on their Chinese microblog that Earth Hour aims to raise public awareness on environmental protection, as well as make people lead more environmentally-friendly lives.

Shen Chen, a professor of power systems with Tsinghua University, told the Global Times that the major consumers of electricity used for lighting is the service industry, which only makes up a small sum of China's economy and does not consume much electricity overall. For this reason, turning off lights can only save a little power.

"To save energy China needs to improve its manufacturing industry, which occupies a major part of China's economy and its power consumption. It is the government's responsibility. The act of switching off the lights for one hour every year is not saving energy, though the idea it tries to convey should be remembered," said Shen.

Some citizens expressed their worries that turning off lights at the same time may damage the power supply.

This is within the capacity of the power network and Earth Hour does help save a little energy, the anonymous staff member from the State Grid told the Global Times. "We've been monitoring the power network and necessary actions will be taken in time to handle the peaks and valleys of energy consumption," he added.