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 on duty at Yangxing Substation—a “post-’95” electric power inspection robot named “Xiao Lan,” which looks just like WALL-E from the movie “WALL-E.” Meanwhile, at the Pingshun Substation in the city, the dual-arm robot “Da Huang” was 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 in transforming 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 reveals that the robot seems to have a bit of “morning grumpiness,” with its first two steps slow and sluggish. 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 the “Xiao Lan” robot.

Small body, busy figure, looking quite adorable.

Seeing the reporter’s puzzled expression, Zhong Gaolang, an engineer at the State Grid Shanghai Ultra High Voltage Power Transmission Maintenance Center, smiled and said, “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. These are all tasks for “Xiao Lan,” completing a full station inspection in a three-day cycle.

Listening to its efficiency, one might wonder: can such quick movements truly ensure grid safety?

Seemingly just a one- or two-second action, there’s a lot behind it. The so-called “morning grumpiness” is actually system auto-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 capture, followed by AI image recognition to assess equipment status.

“Substation equipment is complex and varied, including digital meters, pointer meters, switches, and circuit breakers—all recognizable by visible light. The robot can also detect foreign objects like kites or tarps invading the area,” Zhong Gaolang explained. Besides visible indicators, the grid also has invisible signs like temperature, which require infrared “careful inspection.”

Even the tilt of “Xiao Lan’s” head 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 an oil level gauge on top of a transformer, about two or three stories high, but the gauge itself is tiny, like a bottle cap. “In the past, our ‘old masters’ used telescopes to read meters. Later, we switched to taking photos with phones, but the gauges are too small and often unclear. Now, with 20x optical zoom, the robot can easily see everything,” 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 when the oil level was too low. If the oil level drops too much, it could cause insulation breakdown—consequences too terrible to imagine.

Headless but Handy

“Xiao Lan” looks adorable but has no hands. Conversely, the Pingshun station’s “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 and disconnect wires, install bird deterrents and alarms, and even prune 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 its built-in workbench, uses a lift to raise “Da Huang” to a fixed position, then starts the wiring process, allowing it to complete tasks autonomously.

Yuan Chao operating “Da Huang.”

At this moment, “Da Huang’s” two eyes come into play: one is a regular 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, all 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 this year,” Yuan Chao told the reporter. Live-line work has always been dangerous for electricians. Power is ruthless, protective measures are often imperfect, and power outages can affect city electricity supply—especially during the Spring Festival, when ensuring power supply is a responsibility.

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

During a cold snap just before the festival, the robot demonstrated its capabilities.

At the repair site of the 500 kV Fen San Line in Nanqiao Town, a line 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 affects line reliability. “The 500 kV Fen San Line is an important channel for external power entering Shanghai, carrying regional backbone transmission tasks. Any fault during the Spring Festival would definitely impact Shanghai residents’ holiday.”

However, this section of ground wire had been in service for 34 years, exposed to complex weather conditions, with obvious rust and significantly reduced mechanical strength and load capacity, posing operational risks. Conventional repair would require power shutdown and manual tower climbing. But in cold, humid environments, high-altitude work becomes more dangerous, and old ground wires are highly sensitive to additional loads. Manual tower climbing risks secondary damage to vulnerable parts.

Robot repairing old transmission lines.

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

Yu Kuai said the single-point repair took less than an hour, cutting the traditional tower-climbing repair time in half, reducing personnel by half, and increasing overall efficiency by 75%.

Learning to Work with Robots

Whether “Xiao Lan” or “Da Huang,” their appearances are far from the humanoid robots seen on the Spring Festival Gala, nor are they as agile as the “kung fu robots.”

“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 robot’s appearance 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, inspection workload would be unimaginable.” This Spring Festival, “Xiao Lan” doesn’t take leave or expect overtime pay; it still departs for inspections promptly at 8 a.m. every day. Its schedule is even booked through June this year.

“Currently, 500 kV substations still have personnel on duty, 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—robots would ‘crash’ if they tried—those will be left to us humans,” Yuan Chao believes. Future power workers will no longer directly handle wires but operate robots. “Working alongside robots is an essential skill for the new generation of power workers.”