China raised power prices for industrial, commercial and agricultural users in some regions in an attempt to ease the worse power shortage in seven years.
The hikes were of about 3%.
The power price rise is expected to add to inflationary pressures - but boost profit margins at power producers.
That should prompt an increase in electricity supplies from loss-making power plants that had failed to keep up with rising demand. Higher prices should also discourage excess power consumption.
China has many power problems such as the grid and the transportation of coal, are long-term and can only be solved after several years.
Reuters
reports that China may have its worst summer power shortages since at least 2004 "as demand growth remains strong while coal-fired power plants, which generate 80 percent of national electricity output, have restricted production due to operating losses resulting from high coal costs".
At the same time, hydropower has been hit by a drought in central China, including Hubei province, home of the Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest hydropower project.
The government raised the prices that grid firms charge industrial consumers by 0.0167 yuan per kilowatt hour , Chinese state media said after a briefing by the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planning body".
We track all
Chinese ETFs live here.
