State grid, subsidiaries strive to prevent outages during National Day holiday

Living in a small, remote village in Yushan county of Changshu, Jiangsu province, 56-year-old Fan Lihua was surprised to see a team of technicians show up at her home just 20 minutes after she reported a power outage.

The team was jointly organized by a Changshu-based power supply company run by the State Grid Corp of China and several other local power generation companies.

It operates a 24/7 hotline that receives reports on outage-related problems and offers inspection and maintenance services for about 190,000 households across the city.

Along with power suppliers in Changshu, electric companies across China have launched a series of measures to guarantee power during the National Day holiday in response to concerns about outages and blackouts that occurred in Northeast China last month.

"The government is taking measures to boost power supplies and is developing energy consumption plans to ease power shortage problems. Grid companies are also stepping up efforts to optimize both power dispatching and transmission systems to guarantee efficient power supply. Efforts from both government and electric companies will ensure a steady power supply during the holiday," said Lin Boqiang, head of the China Institute for Studies in Energy Policy at Xiamen University in Fujian province.

"In addition, as many major factories and companies are closed during the holiday, there won't be much pressure on power supply in general, though demand may rise for household users," Lin added.

According to the China Southern Power Grid, a State-owned company responsible for power supply in the country's five southern provinces, as well as Hong Kong and Macao, it saw a rapid drop of power usage on Sept 30 and a slight rebound in the first three days of the holiday, and expected a rise of power demand starting on Monday.

"With more company and factory users resuming production and rising power demand during the second half of the holiday, there might be a need for strengthened measures to guarantee power supply," Lin said.

In order to ensure a steady supply of electricity during the holiday, the CSG set up a communication mechanism with local governments and corporate consumers to come up with more efficient power consumption plans, and it sent out notices to some consumers urging them to reduce power use during peak times.

In Guangdong province, a CSG subsidiary leveraged big data technologies to predict the power demands of consumers and set up a mechanism to send out alerts when demand peaks.

In Hainan province, CSG's local subsidiary optimized grid operations to monitor real-time power use and demand predictions, and to enhance supply management of power generated from coal and gas.

"We estimated a balance of power demand and supply during the holiday, and we do not see any need for electricity shutdown or maintenance," said Wu Mingxuan, manager of operations at the electricity dispatch and control center of CSG's Hainan branch.

The branch also conducted inspections on power facilities in crowded places such as hotels and resorts to guarantee people's safety. The company also prepared 49 portable power generator wagons and 332 generators for urgent use.

The SGCC, which supplies power to about 88 percent of the country, also stepped up efforts to guarantee supplies during the holiday.

In Gansu province, State Grid Gansu Electric Power Co, an SGCC subsidiary, set up a mechanism to prioritize power supply for household users, hospitals and government departments, as well as companies and organizations involved with gas and water supply, transportation and communication.

The Gansu company has also strengthened operation management on hydropower, which is considered an important supplement to coal-fired power.

In Shenyang, Liaoning province, State Grid Liaoning Electric Power Supply Co Ltd encouraged local coal-fired power generation companies to increase power supply. Three new generators totaling 1.3 million kilowatts in capacity will be connected to the grid to guarantee sufficient electricity, according to the company.

SGCC's Shenyang subsidiary used drones and other real-time devices to check the performance of transmission lines. On the first two days of the holiday, it inspected lines totaling 218 kilometers.