Re-examination of power emergency response under the epidemic test

At the end of the year and the beginning of the next year, the arrival of a "black swan" made the beginning of 2020 full of thorns. The sudden outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia broke the joy and peace of the Spring Festival of the Year of the Rat, triggering a comprehensive public emergency in the field of public health, affecting economic production, social order, and residents' lives. A nationwide battle to prevent and control the epidemic was quickly launched.

If disasters themselves are difficult to predict and prevent, then when disaster strikes, how we face it today will determine whether we can survive and break through the disaster.

Over the past few decades, the power industry has accumulated rich emergency response experience, built a mature management system, and trained a strong elite team in fighting natural disasters such as rain, snow, ice, earthquakes, and typhoons. However, the duration of the COVID-19 epidemic, the wide range of its impact, and its far-reaching impact far exceed the natural disasters that my country has faced in the past few decades.

It is gratifying that in this arduous battle, the power industry, as a solid backing for social operation and overall stability, has performed remarkable: in 3 days, the Leishenshan Hospital was powered on; in 5 days, the Huoshenshan Hospital was powered on; in 3 hours, the Fangcang Cabin Hospital was powered on, opening up the "lifeline" of epidemic prevention and control with high quality, high speed and high efficiency, and providing reliable energy guarantee for the medical battlefield on the front line.

However, what needs to be faced is that the outbreak of this epidemic has profoundly reminded the entire industry that the learning and adaptability of power emergency response must remain normal. The power industry is a traditional industry that is closely integrated with all aspects of society. There is no perfect plan to deal with public crisis events. Only by keeping pace with the times, being prepared, and using the handling and recovery capabilities of "when things come to an end" to the extreme can we achieve "not being startled when things come to an end".

Add emergency management outposts

Emergency management is a strategic task in my country, and power emergency management plays an extremely important role in the national emergency management system. A complete power safety emergency management system is of great significance to maintaining national security and the stable development of social economy.

In the long fight against natural disasters, accidents, public health incidents, and social security incidents, my country's emergency response capabilities have been continuously improved. Since my country launched its first power system reform in 2002, my country's power industry has achieved leapfrog development, and at the same time, higher requirements have been put forward for power emergency response capabilities: separation of power plants and grids, rising voltage levels, accelerated promotion of power market construction, and large-scale commissioning of new units, the complexity of the power system has increased, coupled with the "unpredictable winds and clouds" of nature and unpredictable external forces, the safety factors of the power system have gradually become prominent, and power safety and emergency management must jump out of simple tactics and create a new pattern from a strategic height.

The focus of this new strategy lies in a change in concept: emergency capacity building should shift from "incident response-centered" to "risk management-centered".

The management concept centered on risk management is essentially to add an outpost for emergency management of emergencies, and to strengthen the first line of defense of emergency management. "Prevention is the best, rescue is the second, and warning is the last", which fundamentally prevents the formation and outbreak of risk hazards of emergencies. It is a system setting for advanced management of emergencies and has the effect of preventing them before they happen. "However, the implementation of this concept in practice is still unsatisfactory, and the actual response is basically "firefighting type." said Hou Dongyang of the Energy Institute of State Grid Energy Research Institute.

The SARS "black swan" 17 years ago brought a huge threat to the country's social and economic life order, making people realize that risks are everywhere, and the system, methods, means and efficiency of safety risk and emergency management need to be upgraded in all aspects. In 2008, the successive rain, snow and ice disasters and the Wenchuan earthquake intensively tested my country's power response capabilities to emergencies, and then summarized practical experience and formed a more comprehensive power emergency plan and system.

In 2018, the National Energy Administration issued the "Action Plan for Building Emergency Capacity in the Power Industry (2018-2020)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action Plan"). From 2008 to 2018, the situation of power supply and demand in my country gradually reversed in the past decade. The main contradiction facing energy and power is no longer a shortage problem, but a safe, low-carbon, efficient and even low-cost supply. With the continuous development of the power industry and the continuous upgrading of the power system, the characteristics of large-scale ultra-high voltage AC and DC hybrid and large-scale centralized access of new energy are becoming increasingly prominent. The power system has gradually shifted from a power network with one-way flow of information and energy to an energy Internet with electricity as the center, multi-energy coordination, and two-way interaction between information and energy. The operation and control of the power system has become more difficult. It is imperative to comprehensively strengthen the construction of power emergency capacity and further improve the level of power emergency management. Whether it is the emergency management responsibility system, management methods and technical means, or emergency rescue and disposal capabilities, the support and guarantee of the emergency industry are in urgent need of updating and improvement.

The social attributes of power emergency emergencies are highlighted

Different from power emergency response in natural disasters, in public health events, the "social attributes" of power are unprecedentedly brought in, and the level of social crisis factors is higher than the professional level of the industry. "In natural disasters such as rain, snow, ice disasters, earthquakes, and typhoons, power facilities are severely damaged. The key and difficulty of power emergency response lies in power repair and power supply restoration, which requires the organization of personnel to work hard and quickly to solve the problem. In this public health event of the new coronavirus pneumonia epidemic, power facilities were not damaged, and no power outages occurred, but the "social attributes" of power were unprecedentedly brought in. For example, the power demand of epidemic prevention and control institutions increased, and the requirements for power reliability increased, but the power personnel participating in the emergency also faced the risk of infection." said Lv Mengxuan from the Energy Institute of State Grid Energy Research Institute.

At the critical moment of the outbreak, Wuhan built two hospitals, Leishenshan and Huoshenshan, referring to the "Xiaotangshan" model in Beijing in 2003. More than 300 builders worked day and night, and in just three days, they completed the installation and commissioning of 7 kilometers of high-voltage cables and 26 equipment in Leishenshan Hospital, and successfully powered on; the Vulcan Mountain Hospital, which followed, was successfully powered on on January 31 after five days and five nights of hard work by construction workers, overcoming the impact of bad weather on construction. The hospital adopted a dual power supply design, which can largely ensure the stability of power supply. After the two hospitals were put into operation, in addition to the 24-hour duty of the power supply guarantee service team, the Wuhan Power Supply Company also launched intelligent video surveillance for Vulcan Mountain Hospital and Leishen Mountain Hospital to implement real-time monitoring of electrical equipment.

In the fight against the epidemic, masks are the "armor" of medical staff and the "shield" of ordinary people. The quality and quantity of medical supplies and protective equipment such as masks are the key to epidemic prevention and control and resumption of work and production. Due to the surge in demand for medical supplies such as masks, many material production companies are under great production pressure and their production volume has doubled. Not only do they need to work overtime 24 hours a day to produce the entire line, but they even need to build new production lines. In order to escort the production of enterprises to "add full horsepower and firepower", power supply companies in various places immediately communicated with the heads of key national epidemic prevention material production enterprises on how to further improve the reliability of power supply without power outages, and strengthened the inspection of power equipment of such enterprises, and took the initiative to conduct safety inspections on the power use of enterprise equipment. State Grid Tianjin Binhai Power Supply Company completed the external power grid transformation for a mask filter material production enterprise in just 4 days, realizing two-line power supply, and providing "double insurance" for the production of enterprises.

Extraordinary response to an extraordinary epidemic

It takes extraordinary efforts to deal with an extraordinary epidemic. Power companies must not only ensure safe and reliable electricity use for the people and epidemic prevention and control agencies, but also prevent the epidemic from spreading among power workers who are directly responsible for the front line of supply guarantee. Especially for power companies in the core areas of the epidemic, their prevention and control tasks are extremely arduous. On January 29, CCTV's "Focus Interview" program fully showed the story of Wuhan's power dispatchers working in isolation after the city was closed, which shows the strict prevention and control and the hardship of shift work.