Growth of power consumption in China accelerated in the first quarter of this year.That was the word Wednesday from China's top economic planner. The NDRC says power consumption in March reached 476.2 billion kilowatt hours, up 5.6 percent from the previous year.

Power consumption for the first quarter as a whole reached 1.352 trillion kWh, up 3.2 percent year-on-year. The NDRC says the recovery in power consumption was driven by the high-tech and service sectors as well as increases in residential demand. However, the NDRC said power consumption in the manufacturing sector remains weak.