Green Electricity Adds Splendor to the Beijing Winter Olympics

On January 4, 2022, the first 170 members of the power guarantee team from State Grid Beijing Electric Power entered the small closed-loop Winter Olympics venues to guarantee power supply, marking the company has entered the final stage of power supply guarantee for the Winter Olympics.

Members of the power guarantee team inspecting equipment at the National Speed Skating Oval

The digital guarantee and command systems coordinated efficiently

The Beijing Winter Olympics and the Winter Paralympics are major iconic events in the history of China. As the energy support, power supply guarantee is covered with great responsibility and glory.

With nearly three years of meticulous preparation, a strong power supply support hub has been built. State Grid Beijing Electric Power has established a three-tier power guarantee system led by the general command at headquarters and supported by on-site command, with the coordination of sub-commands and power guarantee teams. It has established an ad hoc team, formulated power supply guarantee plan, epidemic prevention plan, and contingency plan, and made preparations for power supply guarantee in a coordinated manner. Valuable experience has been gained during a series of Winter Olympics test events.

Employees of State Grid Beijing Electric Power monitoring the venues via Winter Olympics power supply guarantee & command platform.

As an enterprise serving the “City of Dual Olympics”, the company for the first time set up two-level monitoring seats beside the venues and innovated the digital guarantee and command mode of “strong front-end + large back-end”.

The Electric Power Operation and Guarantee Command (EOC) for the Beijing Winter Olympics, designed and developed independently by the company, integrates 29 business systems with 187 data indicators, and has been employed at all levels of commands and venues. With its digital, intelligent and standardized features, the EOC realizes full coverage, panoramic display of information, perception of all elements of data, and control of whole-process command. It can analyze and judge abnormal information in time, helps the command with penetrating control, and improves the quality and efficiency of power supply guarantee in every aspects.

Safe and reliable power supply with “Expert + Butler” services

As the countdown to the Beijing Winter Olympics begins, passion for high quality and final success in power supply is growing high in Beijing and Zhangjiakou.

On December 31, 2021, the 26 projects for temporary power supply for the Winter Olympics venues in Beijing, ordered by the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee and constructed by State Grid Beijing Electric Power, were fully completed and delivered ahead of schedule. The projects will meet the demand for electricity at temporary facilities such as timing and scoring services, media broadcasting, security and catering at the Winter Olympics venues.

In addition, the company has pioneered the work mode of “integration of electric power construction and service guarantee” to provide venues with high-quality electric power services which feature unified design standards, standardized equipment, and project quality met standards. It has built or refurbished power supply facilities for 16 venues, with a total installed capacity of 315 MVA. The projects were completed in June 2021, and improved the reliability of power supply for the Winter Olympics venues during competition.

The company holding a drill for emergency power supply at the National Speed Skating Oval.

As the only power service provider for the Beijing Winter Olympics, State Grid Corporation of China extends its service from the grid of the company’s property to the “last centimeter” of the venues, and has input a cumulative manpower over 20,000 to provide “expert + butler” support services in the two dimensions of “event + city” and “regular + special”.

Guaranteeing power supply for the Winter Olympics is the first large-scale support task performed in winter, and new challenges has been envisaged for cold proofing of field employees and anti-freezing of equipment as the temperature in the Yanqing competition area can be as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius.

In view of the actual work for guaranteeing power supply for the Winter Olympics, the company offers an “ingenious solution” focusing on key technological breakthroughs. It innovatively employs new equipment such as the hydrogen energy truck generators with the largest capacity in China, uninterruptible power supply resistant to low temperature, and robots for cable tunnel inspection. It conducts in advance the low temperature resistance tests of equipment with new technologies such as electrical heating and thermal insulation casing to ensure the normal operation in extremely cold weather. It has set up an alpine skiing mobile operation and maintenance team, the first “interdisciplinary special force” for power supply support in Yanqing competition area. After receiving professional training in electric power, 22 downhill talents in alpine skiing will carry out dynamic inspections of power equipment scattered among the mountains serving the National Alpine Skiing Centre during competitions.

Green power venues fulfill the promise of a low-carbon Winter Olympics

The National Speed Skating Oval dubbed the “Ice Ribbon” is in the shape of a dancer, and the Shougang Big Air dubbed “Crystal Shoe” is ablaze with colors... Different from the previous Winter Olympics, green is the most salient feature of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Taking this Winter Olympics as an important platform to serve the building of a new power system and achieving the goals of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality, State Grid Beijing Electric Power has made great efforts in pushing forward the trading of green power, promoting the development of China’s clean energy industry, and contributing to the realization of the originality of all green power supply for the Beijing Winter Olympics venues.

Zhangbei is the source of “green electricity”. On June 29, 2020, Zhangbei ±500 kV VSC-HVDC grid test and demonstration project that set 12 world records were officially put into operation. It enabled Zhangbei new energy base, Fengning energy storage base and Beijing load center to “join hands” for delivering clean energy such as wind and solar power in Zhangjiakou area to Beijing power grid, with an annual transmission of about 14 TWh clean energy, accounting for about 1/10 of Beijing’s annual electricity consumption.

The alpine skiing mobile operation and maintenance team making preparations for training

Immense is Zhangbei in “wind and solar”, in a platform green power traded afar. The trading agency enforced targeted optimization of the working procedures for green power trading, continued to track the implementation of the monthly green power trading plans for the Winter Olympics venues, organized green power trading and adjusted the supply of clean energy according to changes of venue demand. Since the closing of the first green electricity trading for the Winter Olympics venues in June 2019, a total of 11 electricity purchasers and 7 power generation groups have been involved in electricity trading, with a total traded volume of 477 GWh. It is equivalent to reduction of standard coal firing by 150,000 metric tons and carbon dioxide emissions by 380,000 metric tons.

The traded green electricity covers Olympic-related electricity consumption including venue construction, test competitions and formal competitions. At the end of 2021, the agency organized in advance the green electricity trading for the Winter Olympics from January to April 2022, with a traded volume of 141 GWh, which can meet the demand for green electricity during the Winter Olympics.

Employees of State Grid Beijing Cable Company carrying out emergency support drill with inspection robots

While ensuring the supply of all green electricity for the Winter Olympics venues, State Grid Beijing Electric Power has also built a dense intelligent network for battery charging and changing to support green and low-carbon travel for the Winter Olympics.

In the Yanqing competition area, the state-of-the-art technology of hybrid AC/DC power distribution network is used to build the first charging station integrated “power generation, charging, storage and discharging” in China. It is equipped with 6 DC charging piles and 4 AC charging piles, which can serve 10 electric vehicles at the same time. 12 charging stations with 383 charging piles have been built around the Winter Olympics venues and along the Beijing section of the Beijing-Chongli Expressway to facilitate the green charging and travel experience and to power up a green Winter Olympics.