It is so cold in star-rated hotels and high-rise office buildings in summer that people have to put on an extra overcoat.

To ease the country's upcoming energy shortage in the next few months, the Beijing organizers for the 2008 Olympic Games have launched a "one degree higher" campaign in the city, calling for public places like hotels and office buildings to raise by one or two degrees their air-conditioners, the Beijing-based Guangming Daily reported on Friday.

"Power output of air-conditioners could be lowered by 5 to 10 percent when indoor temperature is raised by one or two degrees," the daily quoted energy experts as saying.

Such temperature adjustment will have no obvious effect on the comfort inside hotels, office buildings, restaurants, shopping centers, airports and railway stations, it said.

As the peak of electric power consumption still pending, there have already been 24 out of the country's 31 provinces, municipalities and regions that are imposing brown-outs.

According to estimates, the electrical load in Beijing will peak at 9.5 million kilowatts, 14 percent more than last year, andtwo-thirds of its electric power will be imported from neighboring Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, which arealready in dire need of power themselves.

Since last year, China has faced growing electricity demand amid fast economic growth, with two-thirds of its provinces short of electricity. The situation has worsened in the first four months of this year, with electricity consumption amounting to 650.5 billion kwh, up 16.1 percent year-on-year.

Source: Xinhua