BEIJING -- The National Energy Administration (NEA) announced Tuesday that the country's electrical power consumption rose 12.2 percent from a year earlier in September.

Power use reached 391.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) in September, the NEA said in a statement on its website. The growth rate was 3.1 percentage points higher than that of August, the statement said.

In the first nine months, electricity consumption totaled 3.52 trillion kwh, up 12 percent year-on-year, the statement said.

By industries, the tertiary industry recorded fastest yearly electricity consumption growth of 14 percent in the first nine months with the total consumption hitting 384.4 billion kwh.

The primary industry recorded an electricity use of 79.5 billion kwh in the January-September period, up 4.5 percent year-on-year, while the secondary industry used 2.62 trillion kwh, up 12.1 percent.

Residents in urban and rural areas nationwide consumed 428.2 billion kwh of electricity in the first nine months, up 10.6 percent year-on-year, according to the statement.

Between January and September, China invested 242.8 billion yuan ($38.11 billion) in power projects. The total included 63.5 billion yuan for hydro power projects, 74.2 billion yuan for thermal power projects, 53.2 billion yuan for nuclear power projects, and 47.7 billion yuan for wind power projects.