If you work with several Chinese suppliers, you might have heard them complain about electricity shortages. You already heard about Chinese New Year, substandard quality, rogue factories… Here is one more risk in your supply chain!

Electricity shortages have different sources. For example, several Shenzhen factories blame the recent strong thunderstorms (we are right in the typhoon season). Heavy snow in the winter can have the same effect. But this is rather exceptional.

Shortages usually occur because of very hot weather, which (1) pushes offices and apartments to use more air conditioning, and (2) makes it more difficult for power plants to cool down. This is the reason why electricity was cut in several provinces over this past week.

In this case, the government resorts to rationing. Residential buildings have the priority, and industrial areas are “on and off”. Unfortunately, it seems like the shortage planning is not always clearly communicated. Factories are often surprised (or pretend to be).

So, why is this important for importers?

If you are on a very tight schedule, your supplier’s workshop might be unexpectedly out of power for 2 or 3 days in a row… And they might miss the closing date.

This past week, I had to reschedule about 30% of my firm’s inspections at the last moment because the factories’ operations had been totally disrupted. Many of them don’t have a power generator on their own, and all the machines had to stop.

So this is a period where timing reliability is lower than usual… You should “pad” your planning even more than usual!