The power company hired a "Post-95" employee: living in a "villa" year-round without taking "overtime pay" during the Spring Festival.

This Spring Festival, there was a new colleague guarding the Yangxing Substation— a “post-95” new team member— the latest four-wheeled robot “Xiao Lan” that just started working last year. It looks just like WALL-E from the movie “WALL-E.” Meanwhile, at the Pingshun Substation in the city, the dual-arm robot “Da Huang” is also handling minor faults on utility poles.

AI and robots have not only appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage but have also entered the frontline of Shanghai Electric Power’s supply assurance, marking a crucial step for Shanghai’s power grid from traditional “manual operation” to an intelligent, precise “artificial intelligence” mode.

Completing 13,000 points in 3 days

In Yangxing Substation, there is a very special “little villa” covering about two square meters, barely tall enough for an adult, yet it is an indispensable duty room for the substation.

Every morning at 8 o’clock, the door of the “little villa” opens on time, and “Xiao Lan” slowly moves toward the equipment area. Careful observation shows that the robot seems to have a bit of “morning grumpiness,” moving slowly for the first two steps. After two or three minutes, its pace suddenly quickens, rushing toward a piece of electrical equipment, stopping, tilting its head, blinking, then rushing to the next point.

The “little villa” of robot “Xiao Lan.”

Small body, busy figure, looking quite adorable.

Seeing the reporter with a puzzled look, Zhong Gaolang, an engineer at the State Grid Shanghai Ultra High Voltage Power Transmission Maintenance Center, smiled: “It checks thousands of points every day. If it weren’t a bit faster, it couldn’t finish in 8 hours.”

In the operation monitoring room, the reporter saw a route map marked densely with 13,000 points. All these are tasks for “Xiao Lan,” completing a full station inspection in a three-day cycle.

Listening to its efficiency, one might wonder—can it truly ensure the grid’s safety with just a “tilted head and blinking eyes”?

Seemingly a one- or two-second action, there’s a lot behind it. The so-called “morning grumpiness” is actually an automatic system alignment, adjusting the route via Beidou positioning and autonomous path planning. Its two “eyes” serve different functions: one uses visible light for observation, the other uses infrared for temperature measurement. A blink is a photo, and AI image recognition then judges the equipment’s status.

“Substation equipment is diverse and complex, including digital meters, pointer meters, switches, and circuit breakers, all recognizable by visible light. Intrusions like kites or tarps can also be detected in time,” Zhong Gaolang explained. Besides visible indicators, the grid also has invisible signs like temperature, which require infrared “careful inspection.”

Even the “tilted head” of “Xiao Lan” has a purpose. Each device’s instrument position and height vary, so the robot must constantly adjust its angle and observe from multiple directions before making a comprehensive judgment.

“Xiao Lan” is currently inspecting inside the station.

Zhong Gaolang pointed to a transformer’s oil level gauge on top, two or three floors high, but the dial is tiny—about the size of a bottle cap. “In the past, experienced workers used telescopes to read meters, then we switched to taking photos with phones, but the meters are too small, often unclear. But with 20x optical zoom, the robot can see clearly,” he told the reporter. Recently, during a cold snap, some equipment’s seals shrank and developed gaps, causing significant oil level drops. “Xiao Lan” quickly detected and alarmed, warning that a low oil level could cause insulation breakdown—an outcome with dire consequences.

No head but a handy hand

“Xiao Lan” looks adorable but has no hands. Conversely, at Pingshun Station, “Da Huang” is the opposite—very dexterous hands but no head.

“Da Huang” is a live-line operation robot, quite large, requiring a lift for operation, but its two hands are especially nimble. Without power interruption, it can connect wires, disconnect lines, install bird deterrents, alarms, and perform more than ten types of tasks, even trimming branches.

At Pingshun Substation, Yuan Chao, deputy team leader of the Shanghai North Power Company’s live-line operation team, is operating “Da Huang.” He places the wiring equipment on the robot’s built-in work platform, uses a lift to raise “Da Huang” to a fixed position, then starts the wiring program, allowing it to complete tasks autonomously.

Yuan Chao operating “Da Huang.”

At this moment, the two “eyes” of “Da Huang” come into play—one is a standard camera, the other a laser camera. It can model the environment around the pole in just three minutes, similar to an autonomous vehicle. After modeling, “Da Huang” can lift and install 20 kilograms of cable independently, without human intervention. Once finished, it automatically descends, and Yuan Chao only needs to operate the lift to retrieve it.

“It’s excellent at installing bird deterrents—about 20 to 30 in half a year. Especially in Baoshan District, where there are many birds, we expect to install over 80 more this year,” Yuan Chao told the reporter. Live-line work has always been dangerous for electricians; power is unforgiving, and protective measures can easily be overlooked. Power outages also affect city electricity, especially during the Spring Festival, when power supply is a responsibility.

With “Da Huang,” even if problems occur during the festival, the live-line robot can repair immediately, ensuring personnel safety.

Just before the festival, during a cold snap, the robot demonstrated its capabilities.

At the repair site of the 500 kV Fen San Line in Nanqiao Town, a ground wire repair robot successfully eliminated a fault in an old ground wire that had been in operation for 34 years.

Guo Shanghai Ultra High Voltage Company maintenance engineer Yu Kuai explained that ground wires are critical safety components of transmission lines, responsible for lightning protection and fault current dissipation. Deterioration directly impacts line reliability. “The 500 kV Fen San Line is an important channel for external power entering Shanghai, carrying regional backbone transmission tasks. If a fault occurs during the Spring Festival, it will definitely affect the city’s residents’ celebrations.”

However, this section of ground wire has been in service for 34 years, exposed to complex weather conditions, with obvious rust and significant decline in mechanical strength and load capacity, posing operational risks. Conventional repair requires power shutdown and manual climbing. But in cold, humid environments, high-altitude work becomes more dangerous, and old wires are highly sensitive to additional loads. Manual climbing can cause secondary stress on damaged parts.

Robots repairing old transmission lines.

To address these challenges, Shanghai’s power grid adopts a collaborative operation mode of “drone lifting + ground wire repair robot.” A load-carrying drone precisely lifts the approximately 13-kilogram repair robot to 70 meters high on the ground wire. Under remote control from ground personnel, the robot moves steadily along the line to the defect point, using specialized repair strips to wrap and reinforce the broken section.

Yu Kuai said the single-point repair took less than an hour—half the time of traditional manual climbing repairs—and reduced the number of workers by half, increasing overall efficiency by 75%.

Learning to work with robots

Neither “Xiao Lan” nor “Da Huang” looks like a typical humanoid robot, nor are they as agile as the “kung fu robots” on the Spring Festival Gala.

“Why does it have to be humanoid?” Zhong Gaolang asked back. Humanoid robots are limited in efficiency; they walk too slowly. The terrain in the substation is flat, so wheeled robots can respond more quickly. Moreover, inspection robots don’t need two hands; their two “eyes” and “brain” are the most important.

Especially for operational robots like “Da Huang,” which need to climb poles, current climbing ability is still limited. So, they “degraded” the legs and paired it with a lift, making it more practical.

In Zhong Gaolang’s view, the appearance of the robot doesn’t matter—what matters is whether it can do the job. Over the past decade, Shanghai’s electricity consumption has skyrocketed. Last year, the city’s total electricity usage first exceeded 200 billion kWh, a 5.28% increase year-on-year, ranking among the top cities globally. The number of substations has also increased significantly. “Our team of 18 people is responsible for 8 substations. Without robots, the inspection workload would be unimaginable.” This year’s Spring Festival, “Xiao Lan” didn’t take a break or ask for overtime pay; it still departs at 8 a.m. every day for inspections. Its schedule is even booked through June.

“Currently, there are still personnel on duty at 500 kV substations, but most 220 kV substations are unmanned,” Zhong Gaolang said. They are using drones for inspections and gradually moving toward automation. Some stations rely on robots or robotic dogs for patrols. Robots like “Xiao Lan” will be working in more substations in the future.

“One day, robots will replace us, but they’re better suited for dangerous tasks. Maybe the really difficult jobs that require careful judgment—those that would cause robots to ‘crash’—will still be for us humans,” Yuan Chao believes. “In the future, power workers won’t directly handle wires but will operate robots. Working with robots is an essential skill for the new generation of power workers.”