Faced with a “most severe situation”, the city – home to over 20 million people – ordered landscape illumination and outdoor advertising lights to be switched off in notices issued Tuesday, the statement said.
Building name signs will also be darkened.
And Chengdu metro said in a video on China’s Twitter-like Weibo platform that it would also turn off advertisement lights and “optimise” the temperature in stations to save energy.
Photos circulating on Weibo showed dimmed lights on metro platforms, walkways and in malls, with commuters walking in partial darkness.
The searing heat is also drying up the critical Yangtze River, with water flow on its main trunk about 51 per cent lower than the average over the last five years, state media outlet China News Service reported Thursday.
Sichuan’s power woes could also have ripple effects on the wider Chinese economy – the province is a key supplier of energy generated by hydropower, including to eastern industrial powerhouses like Jiangsu and Zhejiang.