BEIJING, May 14  -- China's electricity consumption rose 1.3 percent year on year in April, reaching 441.5 billion kilowatt hours (kwh), the National Energy Administration said on Thursday.

This brings total power consumption in the first four months of the year to 1.73 trillion kwh, up 0.9 percent year on year.

During the Jan.-April period, power use in primary industries fell 2.6 percent year on year and secondary industries saw a drop of 0.8 percent, but the usage by tertiary industry surged 7.9 percent.

Residential power consumption grew 4 percent year on year to 247.7 billion kwh.

During the first four months, newly installed power generation capacity hit 24.28 million kilowatts (kw), mostly thermal (13.99 million kw). Newly installed hydro-power capacity was 3 million kw during the period.