China’s power consumption is expected to grow 6% or so this year, down from 7.5% in the previous year, predicted one senior official with the China Electricity Council (CEC) on July 24.

Wang Zhixuan, secretary general of the CEC, said the growth could be around 5.5-6.5%, impacted the slowdown in industrial activities.

That indicates a drop from previous projections made by the CEC, which forecast the nationwide power consumption to grow 7% earlier this year.

China’s power consumption rose 5.3% year on year to 2,627.6 TWh in the first six months this year, 0.2 percentage point higher than the year-ago level, the CEC data showed.

Meanwhile, Wang projected newly installed capacity of 96 GW for the whole year, with coal-fired power accounting for 30 GW.

By the end of 2014, China’s power generation capacity would reach 1.34 TW, with coal-fired plants accounting for 0.82 TW or 61%, he said.

China’s power generation capacity increased 36.7 GW to 1.25 TW for power plants with 6 MW and more by end-June, up 9.4% year on year, according to the CEC.