China Energy Outlook 2020 - Flipbook - Page 21
Figure 1-3. China’s Total Primary Energy Consumption per Capita (1980-2018)
Source: NBS, various years (b).
Recently, with China’s policies focusing on energy conservation and energy-related emissions
reduction, the growth of China’s energy use per capita slowed to 4% per year between 2006
and 2014. Energy use per capita decreased between 2014 and 2016, largely driven by the
slowdown of the national economy that started in 2010, but began to increase again in 2017
and 2018 and reached 3.1 tce/capita in 2018.
Figure 1-4 shows that China’s 2018 primary energy consumption per capita has surpassed the
world average of 2.7 tce/capita. While an average Chinese person consumes more energy than
people living in Africa and in Central and South America, the same average Chinese person
consumes less energy than people living in the Middle East, Europe, Japan and much less than
in Russia and the U.S. On average, Chinese energy consumption per capita is roughly one-third
as much as energy consumption per capita in the U.S. It is expected that energy use per capita
in China will continue to grow as per capita incomes and living standards improve.
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