China's electricity consumption maintained its steady growth last year, up 14.56 percent year on year to well over 4.19 trillion kWh, the China Electricity Council (CEC) said Monday.

The electricity consumption growth rate was 8.12 percentage points higher than the previous year, said a statement from the CEC.

Consumption by manufacturing and industrial sectors increased 15.44 percent year on year to about 3.09 trillion kWh last year, boosted by the country's steady and sound economic growth, said the statement.

Investment in China's electricity industry, however, dropped 8.45 percent from a year earlier to 705.1 billion yuan (US$107 billion) last year.

The statement said China had improved its power generating structure last year with more electricity generated from non-fossil resources.

At the end of last year, installed power generating capacity was up 10.07 percent year on year to 962 million kilowatts.

About 26.53 percent of China's installed generating capacity came from the non-fossil sectors, of which 213.4 million kilowatts was from hydro power, 10.82 million kilowatts from nuclear power and 31.07 million kilowatts from wind power, said the statement.

The authorities closed units generating a total 11 million kilowatts at small thermal power plants last year in its drive to save energy and reduce emissions, said the CEC statement.

(Xinhua News Agency January 17, 2011)