China's power generation capacity will exceed 600 million kilowatts by the end of this year, the China Electricity Council (CEC) announced on Monday.

Wang Yonggan, secretary-general of the CEC, predicted that generators of 80 million kw installed capacity would begin operation this year.

More than 60 million kw generators began operation in China in the first three quarters, including 6.9 million-kw of hydropower and 52.8 million-kw of coal-fired power.

It was a record growth in electricity generation capacity, said Wang.

Power supply problems continued to ease during the first three quarters despite regional or periodic supply shortages, said Wang.

China produced 2,011 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in the first three quarters, up 12.9 percent from the same period last year.

Generators producing 75 million kws will go into operation in next year. Investment in grid construction will be about 200 billion yuan (25 billion US dollars) each for this year and next year.

(Xinhua News Agency October 31, 2006)