Desert island difficult debugging, radish cabbage life -- Zhicheng champion won the National science and Technology Award behind the story

       A total of 36 general projects in Guangdong province won state science and technology awards at the 2020 National Science and Technology Awards Conference recently held in Beijing.Among them, Dongguan enterprise - Guangdong Zhicheng Champion Electrical Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. and Hunan University completed the "Island/shore-based High overload and high-power power system Key technology and equipment and application" project won the second prize of National Science and Technology Progress Award.

       According to Bai Yueliang, vice president of Zhicheng Champion, the project is applied to major national events such as the conference to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the military parade to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army. It meets the needs of special power equipment for major national projects such as Shenzhou-11 and west-east gas transmission. Its core technology has also been extended to Beijing Daxing Airport and other important places to realize the leapfrog development of China's special power system.

Hardships make the best of success. The reporter had an in-depth interview with the participants of the project. They not only had to break through the original innovation problems, but also had to debug the equipment in the extreme environment of the desert island, eat only radish, cabbage and potatoes every day, and stick to their posts during the typhoon. Impressed by the service of Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau, the three high-level talents who participated in the project chose to settle down in Dongguan.

Three power units won the National Science and Technology Award

A number of pioneering technologies to break the international blockade

       “We are very excited to win the National Science and Technology Award, which is also hard won. The application of our research and development achievements in major national projects is the highest recognition for us, but because of the epidemic, we did not go to the Great Hall of the People to receive the award." Talking about the company project won the second prize of national science and technology progress, Zhicheng champion chief engineer Li Minying sighed.

       In Tangxia's champion park, three cuboid, blue-and-white "containers" -- one 20 feet and two 40 feet -- are placed side by side next to the factory building. The three devices are island high reliable power supply system equipment, integrated energy storage type high power supply system equipment and shore power supply system. Among them, the shore power system weighing several tons will be transported to the ports of Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Dongguan and other cities by land transportation, and will be transported to Qingdao port across half of China to provide reliable power for ships to unload and transfer goods. The integrated energy storage power supply system is mainly used for the west-east gas transmission project and power supply for the pump station.

       Li Minying said, "The 'Key technology and equipment and application of island/shore-based high-overload and high-power power system' is a military-civilian integration project. The result of this project is actually a set of systematic devices, and these three devices are the main products."

       Among them, the island high reliable power supply system equipment is one of the most outstanding achievements. High power and reliable power supply system is the key equipment for the rapid power supply of island defense facilities and is also the cornerstone of port and wharf development. The high-reliability power supply system of the island is equipped with equipment different from those used in cities in the past. On the island, it needs to face the harsh environment of lightning, high salt spray, large temperature difference, humidity, and easy rapid aging of the power supply, and frequent failures.

       Under normal circumstances, diesel engines can meet the daily lighting and domestic electricity demand of islands and shoreline bases. However, when the island has special loads requiring high instantaneous energy and long duration of energy supply, it will encounter big problems. The technical staff of Zhicheng champion introduced that, different from the ordinary diesel engine, the equipment broke through the three technical problems of high overload energy rapid transformation, system stable control, and uninterruptable and reliable power supply in bad environment.

       The project team pioneered the high overload energy fast change power system structure and virtual diesel engine synchronous control technology. Generally speaking, according to international practice, the electric system of diesel power supply for ships is 60Hz/ min, and that of shore power is usually 50Hz/ min. The voltage levels of the two are also different. Through this technology, the two can be connected to the grid to achieve seamless switching and reduce the environmental pollution caused by diesel use.

       “If the power does not work, the people on the island will be subjected to great physical and mental tests." "We sealed the device and allowed it to be exposed to wind and rain, and combined with multiple heat dissipation and protection technologies, we solved the problem of reliable power supply in harsh environments," Bai said. At the same time, the project team also invented a special power pulse counting power failure fast identification and switching method to ensure uninterrupted power supply.

       After ten years of continuous research, the project has successfully broken through the foreign technology blockade, the three main equipment has been industrialized, and the sales volume of series products has exceeded 450 million yuan. At the same time, the project team chaired the formulation of 3 relevant national standards, 46 authorized invention patents, independently developed the first set of MW class island special power supply, the first 3MVA two-way low-voltage onshore power supply at home and abroad, and formed 10kW-1MW class, three series of more than 10 kinds of island/shore-based power equipment. It has solved the major demand of special power equipment for major national projects such as major national events and west-east gas transmission.

       Academicians take the lead in learning the difficult problems of original innovation

      Enterprise technical personnel on a desert island difficult debugging

       High-end Marine engineering equipment and platforms are strategic emerging industries, and electric energy and its reliable transformation is an important national demand. Li Minying said that Zhicheng Champion has been committed to power research and development, and has a certain foundation in related technologies. In 2010, the company decided to respond to the national policy and began to participate in the research and development of island and shore-based special power system devices.

       "When we started this project, the key technologies were basically vacant. Major technologies were blocked by Western countries, and there was no obvious breakthrough in China." Li Minying said Zhicheng champions aim to fill the gap in relevant domestic technologies and reach the international leading level. To this end, in 2016, the National Electrical Energy Conversion and Control Engineering Technology Research Center jointly established by Zhicheng Champion and Hunan University became Zhicheng Champion scientific Research Base; In 2018, with the help of Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau, Zhicheng Champion introduced the "Electric Energy Green Transformation and Control Innovation Team" led by Academician Luo 'an.

       In the process of project implementation, the electric energy green change and control innovation team plays a crucial role in the preliminary research and development. It is responsible for the research, research algorithm, determine the technical route and other work, so as to ensure that the project research and development will avoid the detour. But technology research and development is not smooth sailing, the most difficult to gnaw a technology "hard bone" is high overload energy rapid transformation technology, the technology in the domestic basic belongs to the original innovation. At the same time, because this technology is not pure electricity research, but also includes materials, machinery and other disciplines, it needs to integrate the whole industry chain technology, gathering experts from different industries to overcome. Finally, it took two years and the joint efforts of many experts to make a breakthrough in this technology.

       In the innovation team research and development at the same time, Zhicheng champion more play is its own industrialization advantage. Among them, Li Minying was most impressed by the island high reliable power supply system equipment test. For field testing, equipment often needs to go through three application scenarios: river, lake and ocean.

       "Because our power supply is used on islands and reefs and some islands are not navigable, our technicians have to take fishing boats to carry out on-site tests. I lived there for half a year. I had to eat radish, cabbage and potatoes every day. The debugging process was very hard." In the early days, the island's infrastructure was so poor that testers had to live in makeshift houses and bring fresh water to the island because of a lack of desalination equipment, Li said. To test extreme weather, the testers had to stay at their posts during typhoons.

       In addition to the island power supply, the products developed by Zhicheng Champion also need to be tested in the sea. The technicians could only stay on the ship every day for monitoring. Some technicians suffered from seasickness due to the wind and sun, but they still overcame the boring and difficult environment to complete the test task.

       In the multi - persistent and unremitting efforts, the research and development of the equipment has been affirmed. In 2015, Li Minying participated in "Key Technologies and Applications of Megawatt Special converter Power Supply for Coastal Engineering" and won the first Prize for Science and Technology Progress of the Ministry of Education. In 2017, "Key Technologies and Complete Equipment and Application of Island/shore-based High-Power Special Power System" won the Special prize of China Machinery Industry Science and Technology Award; In 2021, the National Science and Technology Awards Conference reaffirmed the research and development achievements.

At present, the equipment realizes the industrialization smoothly, has realized the leap-forward development of island/bank large power special power system of our country.

Talking about the future R&D and industrialization direction of Zhicheng Champion, Bai Yueliang said that the innovation team will be supported by the key technologies of the project, to create a high-end manufacturing industry with the green transformation and control of electric energy as the core, and strive to become one of the emerging pillar industries in Guangdong Province; Promoting civilian-military integration in the field of Marine engineering equipment, promoting the development level of Marine engineering equipment industries in our country, and promoting the high-quality development of upstream and downstream industries.

Quality service of Science and Technology Bureau recognized

Three high-level talents chose to settle down in Dongguan

In the process of research and development of this project, Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau has done a lot of service and support work, and attracted 3 high-level talents engaged in the project to settle in Dongguan through quality service.

Huang Zhijun, chief of the Introduction Department of Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau, introduced that in 2018, with the help of Dongguan Science and Technology Bureau, Zhicheng Champion introduced the "Electric energy Green transformation and Control innovation team" led by Academician Luo 'an. The team was approved by Guangdong Innovation and Entrepreneurship Team, and the amount of approved project was up to 80 million yuan, with Dongguan supporting 40 million yuan. In the process of project promotion, the municipal Science and Technology Bureau implemented specially-assigned services throughout the whole process to help the project coordination and solve many problems.

Dai Yuxing is the director of the National and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory of Electric Digital Design Technology, the first core member of Zhicheng Champion Scientist team, and the main force of the R&D team of the project. He had worked with Zhicheng Champion on technology long before the introduction of the innovation team. So far, three high-level talents, including Dai Yuxing, have settled down in Dongguan. "The government has a strong sense of service to talented people. That's what I like most about Dongguan," Dai said of his reasons for settling down in the city.

"Once our project here needed to be re-inspected, I called the staff member of the science and Technology bureau. The staff member had changed her job at that time, but she still told the relevant person in charge clearly about my case and asked them to help me solve it." That little experience impressed Dai and the city's meticulous talent services made him stay put.