BEIJING - China's power consumption in October rose 8.5 percent year-on-year to 340 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), the China Electricity Council announced Tuesday.

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Of note, the amount was slightly lower than the 349.8 billion kWh of electricity used in September, the council said in a statement.

However, electricity usage during the first 10 months totaled 3.48 trillion kWh, up 17.03 percent from one year ago, according to the statement.

The council said in late October that China's power consumption growth would continue to slow during the rest of this year due to the government's efforts on energy saving and emission cuts.

It forecast that electricity use nationwide for whole 2010 would total 4.1 trillion kWh, up 12 percent from last year.