China's power consumption in September continued to rise with a faster increasing rate, according to China's National Energy Administration (NEA) on Thursday.

Power consumption in September rose 10.24 percent from the same month last year to 322.41 billion kilowatt hours last month. The increasing rate was 2 percentage points up from that of August.

Accumulative power consumption in the first nine months topped 2.66 trillion kilowatt hours, an increase of 1.4 percent over the same period last year.

In the first three quarters, power consumption of the primary industry which covers agriculture, animal husbandry and fishery, added 6.35 percent from a year earlier to 72.5 billion kilowatt hours.

The second industry, including mining, manufactural, building and construction sectors, consumed 1.95 trillion kilowatt hours, representing a decrease of 1.67 percent over the same period last year.

Power consumption in the service sector climbed 11.26 percent year on year to 293.5 billion kilowatt hours in the first three quarters.

(Xinhua News Agency October 15, 2009)