China’s top energy regulator has demanded that a state-owned giant China Datang Corp. immediately begin overhauling its management and operations to improve safety in the wake of two deaths at the company’s power plants.
The National Energy Administration (NEA) said it summoned Datang staff to a meeting on March 3 to discuss safety supervision and management, according to an NEA statement released Wednesday. The company, which owned solely by the state and is managed directly by the central government, along with its subsidiaries, did not do enough to identify “potential hazards” at the plants and “failed to enact some safety measures,” the NEA said.
In 2020, there were 38 incidents that led to 47 deaths in China’s power generation industry, according to NEA data.
The NEA’s dressing down of China Datang followed an incident last month that left one contract worker dead at a power plant run by one of its units in Chaozhou, South China’s Guangdong province. The company, whose main business is power generation, said it was investigating the matter.
In January, another worker was injured while checking boilers at one of China Datang’s power plants in Harbin, Northeast China’s Heilongjiang province, and later died.
After the incidents, the company ordered its subsidiaries to conduct precautionary safety checks. On Feb. 24, China’s Datang’s Xi He power plant in Northwest China’s Shaanxi province urgently suspended operations to conduct an inspection of its facilities, citing concerns over repeated incidents.
Earlier this month, Fujian Datang International Ningde Power Generation Co. Ltd. discovered several potential safety issues during an inspection, including a short circuit caused by electrical overload.
The reoccurrence of incidents at power plants across the country has alarmed the regulator. In June, the NEA summoned staff from the state-owned giant, State Grid Corp. of China, for a meeting in the wake of three incidents that occurred from April to July in which 10 workers died.
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In December, China Datang acquired a majority stake in Dian Swastatika Sentosa Tbk PT’s thermal power plants in Indonesia in a $394 million deal.
Contact reporter Anniek Bao (yunxinbao@caixin.com) and editor Michael Bellart (michaelbellart@caixin.com)
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