They needed 3 billion tonnes, of which 2.7 billion was produced locally. 300m was imported, 30m of which was from Australia. Per the article, their coal needs are going to increase by 10% year-by-year. They're investing in other mines and expanding production, but that's going to take 2-3 years. In the meantime, they're facing an acute shortage, partly due to banning Australian coal.

The prime suspect is actually the grid, and generation capacity itself.

It's a recurring phenomenon every few years.

China doesn't have district heating in Shanghai, and further south, despite climate at around Shanghai latitudes being quit cold. This leads to everybody using electric heaters.

It's like the Texas electricity crisis in USA, except it happens every relatively cold winter in China.

Responding to your child, echelon, because replies ran out ...

Shanghai is one of those edge climates where it's not quite cold enough to do something about the cold, but just cold enough to be uncomfortable and deploy a band-aid fix.

So they don't make real investments in climate control and everyone is cold and/or wears sweaters in the office and/or deploys electric heaters ...

The Shanghai forecast this week is a high of around 30C and low of 20C.

Indeed, completely missed that.

So... early winter is not the cause this year. Even quite far up north, it's quite warm this year.

Still an interesting point as not many people know Shanghai has quite cool winters (and even 10C outside needs some heating indoors).

I just did a double take as it’s still late summer/early fall so still relatively warm.

I'd say if they have power shortage already, then the situation may turn even more dire when the cold strikes.

I just looked it up because I was curious. Shanghai average temps seldom reach below freezing [1]. The average January low is 36 degF.

Is it really that big of a problem, then? If so, couldn't the government regulate use of electric heating? It's not like water pipes bursting is a huge risk.

[1] https://www.climatestotravel.com/climate/china/shanghai

That's pretty warm! That's similar weather to Atlanta, I would have imagined it's much colder in Shanghai. Average January low in New York City is 26F.

Unfortunately it seems Asian, which I am also have lower tolerance for cold. I and my family could barely endure below 15 degree Celsius.

Asia has some of the coldest inhabited parts of the world !