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With the Spring Festival approaching, Xingan town, Shuangyashan City, heilongjiang province, is bustling with noise and excitement. Streets and stores are full of parents, taking children with them. Street pedlars are selling frozen fish, chicken, ice cream and Spring Festival couplets. Customers and pedlars are bargainning loudly. Firecrackers make great sounds. Loudspeakers within shopping malls are playing warm and festive music.
However, Xingan power substation, several kilometers away from the town, remains silent. Song Xuezhi, the only staff in the power substation, does his work as usual and seems not bothered by the festival at all。
A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and consumer, electric power may flow through several substations at different voltage levels. A substation may include transformers to change voltage levels between high transmission voltages and lower distribution voltages, or at the interconnection of two different transmission voltages.
Xingan power substation is an ordinary one. It was established in 1991 and attached to Jixian Rural Power Bureau and responsible for providing electricity for hundreds of households and shops in Xingan town and villages around. After its construction was finished, Song Xuezhi was sent there. It is a small substation providing 66 kilovolts. For this kind of small substation, power sector usually send staff to check and watch the operating of equipments 24 hours every day. If there is a problem, they will immediately report to the upper rank and an engineer will be sent there.
Being with the equipments for 24 hours 365 days in a year is not considered a good work by most people. However, Song did not complain at all when it was announced that he would be sent there. He said, “It is an important work. Someone has to do it. I do not feel bad to serve for people there.”Since then he has been working there for 20 years.
Working as the only staff in Xingan substation is a unique experience. The substation was several kilometers away from the town and hundreds of kilometers away from the city. No stores, houses and people are around the substation. Life there thus is pretty inconvenient. Groceries and other household items has to be bought in the town.
The winter in northeast China is long and cold. When heavy snow struck the area and block the road, Song has to wait until the road is cleared to buy goods. To eat fresh vegetables, Song tills a piece of land and plants tomatoes and eggplants in spring. Song said everything was OK except when he was ill. No drugstores, clinics and hospitals are around the substation. Once at a winter night, Song had a fever and felt terrible. He could not find a bus to go to the town in which the nearest clinic was. He basically just stayed and stood the pain until his wife came and took the medicine there a week later. There is no tap water in the substation.
Water became a huge problem for Song. In spring, summer and autumn, Song will get water from a well around the substation. In winter, the water in the well is frozen. Thus, Song has to walk several kilometers to the river and dig a hole to get water. Because the substation is responsible for providing power for households in 24 hours 365 days. Song has no holidays. For more than twenty years, his wife came and spend the Spring Festival with him in the substation.
Song said he does not feel miserable about his work at all. However, he admitted that he felt sorry for his parents. Song was in his twenties when he first came to the substation to work. At that time his parents were strong and healthy. Now Song was in his forties and his parents were old and weak. They were often ill and miss Song, their favorite son, a lot. In the past twenty years, on average Song only came home once or twice a year. Every time he came home because of his parents’bad health. He would stay for one or two days. Sometimes he wants to stay longer, but his work cannot be left to others. Song said he was worried about the operation of the subtation when he was not there. He feels responsible for the providing electricity to the households around.
The work in substation is not as idle as most people would imagine. Song’s schedule is tight every day. He has made comprehensive plan for what to do in the day. He gets up at five thirty in the morning. Substations generally have switching, protection and control equipment, and transformers. Other devices such as capacitors and voltage regulators are also located at a substation. First Song will check the equipments which were placed indoor to prevent being destroyed by bad weather. Then he will look at the outdoor equipments’operation. He has make sure every equipment does well so that households around can have electricity. In one day this kind of check he will repeat six times.
His most important work is to write down the data from the equipments and report them to Jixian rural power bureau at 4 o’clock in the afternoon every day. After he finishes reporting, he will spend two hours cleaning the yard surrounding the substation house and the yard in which he live. Song loves everything to be neat and tidy. He put a lot efforts in tidying up the substation. As a result of his hard working, the substation is in great condition. The flowers in the yard bloom beautifully and the leaves grow great. Song is very proud of the plants he grows. He gains a sense of achievement from them. Song said, “I always feel busy. Thus I seldom feel lonely.”
Song tried to make himself busy every day. However, without family’s companion, he sometimes will also miss his wife and son. “When I first came here to work, my son is very little. He has to go to school near my house. So my wife remain in the house to take care of my son.”Song smiled when he mentioned his son. He said, “I am used to live here by myself. It is common that I do not see people in ten days or longer. If I feel lonely, I will speak to myself.”“Now things become better.”Song said with a light-hearted tone, “My son went to college. My wife now has more time to visit me in the substation. I finally have someone to speak with.”
Devoted to his work, Song said, “Though there is only me in the substation, I will always do my work well.” He does not need other’s supervision to finish his work. He is good at self discipline. There is no big news in his substation. He only keeps repeating checking and watching instruments.
Song only has been to elementary shool for six years as formal education. He said, “Where electrical engineering is concerned, I am only a layman.”However, because of his perseverance and enthusiasm, he learn by himself about the electricity and become an expert on the operation of the substation. He first came to the substation in 1996. He knew that to become a qualified worker he has to enhance his knowledge on electromagnetism.
He learned junior school and high school level physics and had read all books he can find about substation operation in 9 months. He check the equipments, read the instructions to be familiar with the structure of every equipment. At night he search more information and study circuit theory. As a result, he become an expert on electric engineering within several years. He also becomes a role model for other staff in Jixian Rural Power Bureau. When the head of the bureau, Mr. Wang, is asked about Song’s work, Wang said, “He is the best people I have seeen, hard-working and respectful.”
Strong wind and heavy snow in northeast China pose great challenges for Song’s work. On May 19th, 2010, there is a large scale power failure in Xingan town. Song immediately reported the data to Jixian Rural power bureau. He knew that it was necessary to find out the causes of the problem as soon as possible. While waiting for the engineer to come, he turned off all eletric wires and tested every wire. Finally he found out the problem was caused by two ground wires. In the twenty years Song have been working in the substation, he keeps in mind that he must make sure households nearby can always have electricity. He also participated in writing the disciplines of substation operation. He is responsible for writing the accidents handling part. The disciplines become a important guide for young substation staff.
To understand the operation of the operation of the substation, he recorded the data, problems and the causes on charts. He tries to find the pattern among the problems to know the most effective way to deal with the problems. Song said, “Now I can detect if the transformer has a problem just according to the sounds it makes.”Behind this special skill, it is Song’s 20 years’hard work. “The inspection of instruments in the substation is like we have physical examination. Only when we do the inspection carefully can we eliminate the potential accidents.”This is what Song keeps saying during the interview。
In recent years, with some equipements in the substation ageing, equipments breakdown became more common. Since some parts of the equipments are too old, factories stopped producing them. Thus, engineers cannot find ways to replace these parts. Some old equipments have been working more than its working years. However, because Song has been with these old equipments for so many years, he always knows where the weak part is and how it works. Every time there is a breakdown, he can find smart ways to solve the problem. When he leave the substation to go home or to buy things, he will come back as soon as possible. He said he can only fall asleep when he heard the transformers humming.
Jixian Rural Power Bureau these years also tried to transfer him back to the town. But the plan cannot be implemented since no young people agree to come to the remote Xingan power substation. Song himself does not worry about it at all. He said now his life here is much better than the past. He does not think life here is unbearable. “Whoever comes has to adjust to the life here. If nobody wants to come, I can stay here until I retire.”
Today, standardized communication protocols are used to allow multiple intelligent electronic devices to communicate with each other and supervisory control centers. People like Song in the future will no longer have to work in the remote substation alone for tens of years. With the automation developing, at some time they will be able to celebrate Spring Festival together with their family. But people will not forget them. Their hard work and contributions for others’happy time will always be appreciated.
BAI Jinyu
International journalism major, former BP debater.