BEIJING - China's power consumption in February rose 15.82 percent from a year earlier to 313.6 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh), the National Energy Administration (NEA) said on Tuesday.

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Electricity use in the first two months this year rose 12.32 percent year on year to 702.5 billion kWh.

In January and February, the power use of the primary industry rose 3.91 percent to 12.9 billion kWh year on year, the secondary industry consumption grew 11.41 percent to 507.3 billion kWh, the tertiary industry consumption climbed 15.88 percent to 85.2 billion kWh, and household consumption rose 15.37 percent to 97.1 billion kWh.

The NEA forecast in a statement released in late January that total power consumption for this year would rise around 9 percent year on year to 4.5 trillion kWh, slower than 14.6 percent for 2010.