Abstract: Electricity consumption forecasting is an important basis for the power industry development planning during the period of the 13th Five-Year. The new momentums drive the development of the electricity consumption of China under the new economic normal, which include power demand of the second industry represented by the high-end manufacturing industry, power demand of the third industry represented by the modern service industry and power demand of residents living driven by the new urbanization. China is in the stage of transition from the middle of industrialization to the later stage. Under the situation of economic structure adjustment, transformation and upgrading, it is difficult for the two-digit high speed growth to appear again similar to the period of the 10th Five-Year and the 11th Five-Year. At present, there is still a big gap between China and the developed countries in the level of per capita electricity consumption. Therefore, the future electricity demand of China still has great potential for development. The low electricity consumption growth rate is not consistent with the electricity consumption development experience of relevant nations and regions. Methods such as per capita electricity consumption, electricity elasticity coefficient, various sub sectors and quantitative economic model are used for forecasting the electricity consumption of China in this paper. It is predicted that the electricity consumption of China during the period of the 13th Five-Year will keep a rigid growth.

Key words: new normal, electricity demand forecast, driving force for electricity consumption growth, power demand of the energy intensive industries