State Grid helps boost new forces

State Grid Corp of China, the world's largest utility — which shoulders the dual tasks of safeguarding the country's energy security as well as its economic lifeline — has made innovations to help unleash new quality productive forces.

Local units of State Grid have developed new intelligent devices and applied them in enterprises to help the latter develop advanced productive forces through technological breakthroughs.

State Grid has been encouraging its staff members nationwide to make technological innovations, which can give rise to new industries, new models and new driving forces — all core elements for boosting new quality productive forces.

In East China's Jiangsu province, Wang Xiuru, 46, and her research team at State Grid Suqian Power Supply Co have independently developed "integrated smart switch automatic detection equipment", which has been used in over 30 equipment manufacturing enterprises and scientific research institutes in 21 provincial-level regions.

Mao Wangqing, Wang's colleague, noted that an expert committee led by Wang Chengshan, an academician from the China Academy of Engineering, evaluated this equipment and said its overall technology had reached a leading global standard.

Engaged in relay protection research ever since she graduated from the Shanghai Institute of Electric Power and became an employee at the State Grid unit in the prefecture-level city of Suqian in 1999, Wang Xiuru has devoted herself to related research work, obtaining a total of 69 patents.

For over two decades, she has been deeply involved in relay protection, AC (alternating current) and DC(direct current) distribution networks, participating in a major national science and technology project, as well as two science and technology projects of the State Grid.

Her devotion and achievements have won high praise, such as when State Grid named her a "model worker" and the All-China Women's Federation conferred on her the title of "National Women's Model" in 2023.

Earlier, she helped establish the first postgraduate workstation at State Grid in a prefecture-level city in 2021, and set up the first real demonstration field in Jiangsu in May 2021, undertaking empirical testing on related equipment in the national power distribution network.

"It is necessary for us to devote ourselves to one field, but also vital for us to be the best in the field," she said.

In 2021 she also established the Su Yan Innovation &Innovation Service Center in her company composed of 10 female members of different majors and ages, and engaged in scientific and technological innovation as well as the incubation and transformation of their achievements.

So far, her team has successfully implemented the achievements of four projects into the operations of enterprises, winning an income of 750,000 yuan ($104,900), and helping firms to boost new quality productive forces.

Meanwhile, in East China's Anhui province, power researchers also developed and utilized an online monitoring device for the internal mechanical status of gas-insulated metal-enclosed switchgear (GIS) disconnectors, realizing dynamic "visualization" and providing a strong guarantee for the intrinsic safety of the large power grid.

The innovation, conducted by the State Grid Anhui Electric Power Research Institute after three years of research, has been applied to the network at Anhui UHV (ultra-high voltage) Huainan Station, said Yang Wei, director of the institute's Power Transmission and Transformation Technology Center.

GIS occupies an increasingly important position in power grid construction due to its advantages of space-saving, easy installation and strong anti-interference, he said.

It is now known that the device has been deployed in more than 20 substations of the 1,000 kilovolt Huainan Station and 500 kV Exi Station, helping diagnose 12 mechanical defects such as abnormal grounding switches in UHV GIS equipment.

"The successful development of this device is of vital significance in safeguarding the safe operation of GIS equipment, and promoting the continuous development and innovation of China's power industry," said Ma Kai, who is in charge of maintenance work at Anhui UHV Huainan Station.