Original article definitely said "per person".
China allocates much more to industry and/because it allocates much less to personal consumption. Especially things like air conditioning. US per person consumption is still 2x that of EU average.
Yes, not your fault, I believe the AUTHOR meant to compare absolute production.
> China allocates much more to industry and/because it allocates much less to personal consumption
Let's not fall into the same hole: In relative terms, US residential is more than 2x of China's residential power use, but that's relative to the much larger production use. In absolute terms their residential power-allocation is not that different actually:
CN: 15% (1.2 trillion kWh)
US: 35% (1.46 trillion kWh)
Now, on a per-capita basis the difference is staggering, as China consumes 20% less to serve 4x the population...
They are rapidly moving to renewable with grid scale BESS auctions avg $66-68/kw they are likely to have electricity prices at $0.01-0.02 over the next few years. I think it will be extremely tough to compete with China in manufacturing unless there is huge investment in renewable and storage systems to keep electricity prices competitive with China who are going to move on from coal over the next decade.
It used to be that the Chinese economy was based on just cheap labor. It's now increasingly based on cheap energy and automation. Replicating that elsewhere needs to start with modernizing energy infrastructure. Without that, there is no chance of competing. Manufacturing is energy intensive. So, cheap energy is indeed a key enabler.
The cost per kwh is a good one to call out. I think the medium term target for that should be < 1 cent per kwh. Effectively it trends to zero because there is very little marginal with solar, wind, and batteries other than the depreciation of infrastructure, equipment, etc. over time.
Since 2000 they've gone from 10% of final energy being electricity to nearly 26% while the US has been basically flat around 23% and they are both predicted to grow (or not grow) at roughly the same in the next few years.
[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/energy-and-materials/our...
[2] SVG...! https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/industries/energy%...
I believe the comparison is absolute production, not per person. Anything else would be odd. Considering China has 4x the capita of US it would mean that in absolute terms China is producing 8x the energy of the US. In reality it seems to be roughly 2x (although both sources are a bit outdated):
US 2023: 4.18 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity from utility-scale generators. Additionally, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems contributed around 73.62 billion kWh 1.
China 2021: 8.53 trillion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity
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But the staggering difference is how much of the electricity is attributed to the Industrial sector:
China: 70% (~6 trillion kWh)
US: 26% (~1 trillion kWh)
So overall China allocates 6x the electricity to production compared to US...