Like in many parts of the world, temperatures have been soaring across China’s Jintan District of Changzhou in the Jiangsu Province since early summer, causing regional social electricity consumption to surge sharply and push local power grid supply into a critical peak season. To cope with the growing power demand, the State Grid Changzhou Power Supply Company has rolled out targeted and intelligent measures for smart grid dispatching, digital equipment inspection and round-the-clock emergency duty.

This is helping the company maintain full operational readiness to safeguard safe, stable, and reliable power grid operation throughout the summer peak period.

State Grid Jintan Power Supply Company’s power dispatch and control center frontline staff monitor real-time grid operating conditions and dynamic power load fluctuations across the whole district via a big data power platform. By conducting advance prediction and analysis on peak power consumption periods and spatial load distribution characteristics, the team is able to formulate scientific grid operation plans to realize refined and highly efficient allocation of power resources.

The maximum regional power load in Jintan District has reached 1.536 million kilowatts as of June 22, marking a 19.7% year-on-year increase compared with 1.283 million kilowatts recorded in the same period last year, according to Fang Muzhi, monitor of the company’s dispatch operation team. The local power grid maintains stable and sound overall operation despite the rapid growth of electricity demand, Muzhi said.

The power company is faced with dual challenges of skyrocketing power load and persistent high temperature weather. In response, officials have established a coordinated operation mechanism integrating equipment managers, online operation and maintenance teams, and professional technical support teams. The team is leveraging intelligent inspection technologies including unmanned aerial vehicle aerial patrols and infrared temperature measurement. This helps team members carry out all-day special inspections and nighttime targeted checks on core power facilities, including substations, transmission and distribution lines and distribution transformers.

Real-time temperature rise monitoring is implemented dynamically based on real-time load changes to keep all power equipment under controllable and stable operating status. Up until now, the company has completed nearly 1,000 equipment inspection missions, identified and remediated more than 100 hidden risks such as poor pile head contact, aging cables, and tree obstacles along power lines. These targeted renovations have effectively fixed weak links in the power grid and consolidated solid safety foundations for summer peak power supply guarantee, the power company said.

Looking ahead, State Grid Changzhou Power Supply Company said it plans to continue closely tracking the operating status of all grid equipment, and adjust the operation modes of overloaded power lines in a timely manner to guarantee steady equipment performance. The company will further strengthen emergency duty arrangements and reserve standby working personnel. New technologies such as rapid power supply restoration for full-outage lines will be fully deployed to comprehensively upgrade the grid’s emergency response and rapid disposal capabilities, the company said.

The plan is for State Grid Changzhou Power to stick to full-chain grid risk prevention and intelligent operation management with the goal of delivering consistent, orderly and reliable power supply for industrial production, commercial activities, and residential electricity consumption during the summer peak season.