The Environment Bureau of Hong Kong is considering boosting electricity imports from mainland China as ageing coal-fired power plants supplying half of Hong Kong's electricity consumption are due to shut down from 2017: the semi-autonomous territory would either have to triple gas consumption for its power sector or to double its mainland electricity imports to cover 60% of its power needs. Hong Kong already imports about 20% of its electricity demand from the Daya Bay nuclear plant in Guangdong through a dedicated line (the HK grid is not interconnected with the China Southern Power Grid, CSPG). Raising imports would cut local pollution and would also improve competition for the dominant tycoon-backed local utilities, namely CLP Holdings and Power Assets Holdings; these companies highlight that their average unplanned power interruption times are much shorter than those of CSPG (2.3 mn/year compared to 138 mn/year). Hong Kong's current Scheme of Control which grants power utilities an annual return of 9.99% on net fixed assets, will expire in 2018.
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