Hebei Steel, one of the country's top steel producers, also received a formal notice on power restriction, according to a report from the Shanghai Securities released Wednesday.

And Hebei is not alone. Shanxi, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces have also made simi-lar decisions recently.

Hebei is the biggest steel production base in China, and most of the steel producers in the province have been ordered to limit their power use, or face a complete power and water cut.

"The power usage limitation has been going on for about a week, and the notice did not say when it would end," said an employee of a State-owned steel company in Tangshan, one of the major steel production bases in Hebei.

"Output could decrease as much as 50 percent, which could affect our company's profit greatly," said the source, who preferred to remain anonymous.

"Big steel producers would be affected more because they are the main polluters."

The 11th Five-Year Plan set the goal to reduce energy consumption per unit of gross domestic product (GDP) by 20 percent between 2006 and 2010.

At the end of 2009, China had only reduced its energy consumption by 14 percent.