BEIJING - China's National Energy Administration (NEA) announced Thursday that the country's total electric power consumption in the first half of the year rose 12.2 percent from a year earlier to 2.25 trillion kilowatt-hours (kwh).

Power consumption in June rose 13 percent year-on-year to 396.5 billion kwh, the NEA figures show. Power use in the month grew faster than the 10.8-percent increase in May.

During the first half, power consumption in the primary industry rose 5.9 percent to reach 47.5 billion kwh; power use in the secondary industry totaled 1.6961 trillion kwh, up 11.9 percent; consumption in the tertiary industry surged 15.3 percent to reach 238.4 billion kwh.

Power use by the secondary industry during th period accounted for 75.3 percent of the total power consumption, with heavy industries using 1.3932 trillion kwh of power, taking up nearly 62 percent of the nation's total power use.

Meanwhile, consumption by residents in both urban and rural areas rose 12.5 percent to 269.6 billion kwh.

To meet increasing power demand, the nation's electricity generating capacities ran for an extra 44 hours in the first six months compared to the same period last year.

Newly built power-generation capacities during the period reached 34.78 million kilowatts, of which 6.24 million kilowatts was hydro-generated and 23.31 million was coal-fire generated.