The proportion of hydropower in the gross generated energy was 13.7% in 2006, which has dropped by 1.5% than 2005. The pace of construction of hydropower station is evidently behind with the average progress of power construction all over the country.
The total amount of new generating sets put into service in 2006 was 101,170 MW, which has exceeded the generally prospected amount of 90,000 MW. The gross installed generating capacity at the end of 2006 has reached 622,000 MW that has increased by 20.3% as compared with the same period of last year, which has hit an all-time high in the annual growth.
As for the composition of power source, the percentage of thermal power was 77.8% that has increased by 2.1 percentage points; the percentage of hydropower was 20.7%, which has dropped by 2.0 percentage points, and this was the result of pursuing the improvement of supply capability steadily and fast in a short time under the condition of electric power shortage.
The average exploitation level of hydropower in developed countries is above 60%.
Among the countries, the percentage of exploited hydroelectric resource is about 82% in the USA, 84% in Japan and 65% in Canada. Comparing with these countries, the hydroelectric development in China is still at a comparatively low level, and still has great development potential.
At present, the installed generation capacity of hydropower all over the world is about 800 million KW, which meets 20% of the global electricity requirement. The development and utilization of hydro energy resource has made significant contributions for the human civilization and social progress.
China is relatively rich in Hydro energy resource, of which the installed generation capacity available for exploitation exceeds 400 million KW, and the annual energy output is more than 1700 billion KWH.
In accordance with the re-check result of hydropower resource in 2003, the amount of rivers of which the potential hydro energy is above 1,000 KW was 33,886 in our country (mainland). The theoretical potential hydropower resource was 6080 billion KWH of annual quantity of electricity with an average power of 694 million KW, which makes up about 1/6 of the quantity of electricity all over the world.
The 542 million KW of technical development capacity available has made up 78.1% of the average power, and the 2470 billion KWH of annual energy output has made up 40.6% of theoretical potential quantity of electricity.