A special team of electricians is skiing between power facilities in temperatures as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius in the snow-laden mountains of northeast China just to guarantee the power supply of the upcoming Asian Winter Games.
The 9th Asian Winter Games, or Harbin 2025, will kick off on Feb 7 in the provincial capital of Heilongjiang.
The four-member inspection team is part of State Grid's innovative approach to maintain power supply at the Yabuli ski resort, where steep slopes, deep snow and distributed substations pose unique challenges for the maintenance work.
The team has to routinely patrol more than 50 kilometers of 10-kilovolt power lines to guarantee the smooth operation of all the electric facilities.
Sun Yanfeng, head of the team, said that skiing could save their travel time by tenfold and is much more efficient than foot patrols.
"There is a backend digital power support system, which monitors the compliance operation of these devises in real time. In case it spots abnormality in the data collected in certain places, it will dispatch us to rush to the location. Previously we had to patrol on foot and it took much longer time. Now we can ski, even if at the lowest speed of 20 kilometers per hour, it's way faster than the foot patrol at two kilometer per hour. So we can rush to spots of these power supply facilities," he said.
The digital power support system he mentioned is the digital command center the power supply departments built for the Asian Winter Games, which can track real-time data from every piece of electrical equipment.
"The power supply guarantee points are scattered at eight competition venues of alpine and cross country skiing, and 15 reserve venues, featuring complex terrain at high altitudes with low temperatures. In order to guarantee power supply during the Games, we have specially set up a ski inspection team and a drone-based smart patrolling team, who are in charge of equipment inspections in the alpine areas of the ski resorts. At present, we have completed the circuit mapping of all competition resorts and key gymnasiums, making sure to do a good job of power guarantee for the smooth run of the Asian Winter Games," said Zhang Yong, deputy manager of Shangzhi Power Supply Branch of State Grid Heilongjiang Electric Power Co., Ltd.
For Sun and his team, their daily work is to ski through forests on the snow land and check and maintain the equipment in the cold. But Sun said it's worth it as it is part to guarantee the success of the Asian Winter Games.
"The environment is tough, but now if you look at it this way, say our work is to ski, and it's fast to ski to work, but more importantly it's of great fun. If I could ever get one chance to serve such a big event like the Asian Winter Games, my happiness doubles," Sun said.
Electricians ski to guarantee Asian Winter Games operation
