Chapter 90: Song of Electricity (Part 1)

This was equivalent to the second document canceling the first. The reason for this extra step was that, in Wei Aiwen’s view, Huang Xiong’s problem was not sleeping with women, but doing so while on wartime duty, even bringing people of unknown origin into the military camp for long-term residence, creating unnecessary risks for the army and the Elders. Therefore, the handling must be clear in its rewards and punishments to achieve the effect of “curing the disease to save the patient” and serving as a warning to others.

He signed both documents. Then, he crossed out Huang Xiong’s name from a “promotion list” and added a note: “Delayed by six months.”

“Let’s promote him next time,” Wei Aiwen thought.

Next, he drafted an official letter to the Ministry of Health, requesting the Venereal Disease Prevention and Control Department to conduct STD tests on the forty-three members of the former Qimu Island detachment of the Northbound Detachment who were being transferred to the White Horse unit. Anyone with an STD was to be hospitalized for treatment. The other twelve, who were not involved, would continue to serve in the regular army.

At eight in the morning, Elder Liu Tom got out of a rickshaw and walked into the dispatch center of the Lin’gao Power Company at the Bairen Hydroelectric Station, carrying his briefcase. This was the core of the 17th-century Lin’gao power grid, a “special first-class security target.” Not only was the power station and dispatch room surrounded by high walls and barbed wire, but there was also a 50-meter-wide “forbidden zone” outside the walls. No native or unauthorized naturalized citizen was allowed to enter the forbidden zone, marked by bamboo fences. Otherwise, the soldiers in the watchtowers had the right to shoot to kill at any time.

Out of the Elders’ unwillingness to waste anything, the forbidden zone was also a vegetable garden, but only the “most reliable” soldiers of the Lin’gao Garrison Battalion were allowed to plant and harvest vegetables here.

Elder Liu Tom let out a big yawn, took out his special pass for the dispatch center from his pocket, showed it to the Lin’gao Garrison Battalion soldier on guard, and then entered the dispatch center.

One wall of the dispatch room was covered with a mimic panel, showing the currently operating hydroelectric and thermal power generator units. The pointer meters on the panel displayed the current voltage and current at key points of the grid. The naturalized citizen electricians on duty were watching these data and taking notes from time to time.

He first checked the duty log and operational data sheet from last night. Everything seemed normal. Then he walked into the chief’s duty room, greeted the Elder who had been on the night shift, and signed the handover log, officially taking over.

On the desk in the room was an industrial computer, a power monitoring system built with equipment brought from the old world. The screen constantly displayed the current status of the power generation equipment and the operational status of the two 10kV transmission lines. Compared to the mimic panel outside, this system was much more advanced. First, the system displayed digital values, which were much more accurate than the pointer meters outside, whose scales were limited. The pointers were also constantly fluctuating, giving only approximate readings. Second, this system had a statistical function that could record the voltage and current fluctuation range every quarter of an hour, a level of detail that was difficult to achieve with manual recording. The system required very little storage space for data, enough to last for decades. It was a hundred times more convenient to query than paper records, and most importantly, it could generate various load curve graphs, which were much more intuitive than data tables.

Liu Tom had worked in power automation in his original world. After the transmigration, he became one of the directors of the Lin’gao Power Company’s dispatch center. He was still the same person, using the same equipment from his old world, but he had gone from being a contractor to a client, a perfect match for his profession. The equipment brought from the old world was good, but its lifespan was limited. The power company estimated that this equipment could last for five years. The backup equipment could last for another five years, but no one could say what would happen after ten years. Therefore, the dispatch center’s operation was based on traditional technology, namely the old-fashioned pointer meters and recording boards in the outer room.

Don’t look down on this rustic traditional equipment. The cost of manufacturing it alone had made the Planning Department shed tears of blood. The Yuanlao Yuan’s industrial system had an overabundance of processing capacity, but a crippling shortage of materials. To ensure performance, many components that would have been made from different grades of steel or cheap metals and composite materials in the old world were now made of high-grade materials, with the cheapest being copper alloys.

Liu Tom checked the load curve and found no major discrepancies with the data from the log sheet he had seen outside. He then checked the fault log, which was empty, indicating no faults had occurred. He couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief—another peaceful night for Lin’gao Power.

Liu Tom had always been terrified of the word “fault.” On the one hand, he had been a contractor for a long time, and whenever a fault occurred, the client would inevitably call them in for a severe reprimand. On the other hand, although he was now the client in this world, there was no contractor for him to reprimand. When a fault occurred, it often damaged “controlled materials” of the first or second class. And given the current industrial level of the Yuanlao Yuan, repairs were basically impossible, leaving only the value of salvaging parts and raw materials. In a world where they couldn’t even produce their own power cables, everyone understood how serious the consequences of damaging a piece of power equipment could be.

It had been over three years since D-Day, and Lin’gao Power had been in an awkward state of being almost forgotten. In the beginning, Chang Kaishen held a high position in the Ministry of Energy, but he soon found that it was a completely marginal role. After the completion of the hydroelectric station at Bairen Beach and the thermal power station at Bopu, the daily work of the power sector was reduced to operation and maintenance. Due to the weakness of both the power sources and the users, a large power grid effect could not be formed. The power station operation required a lot of manual work, and although some power dispatching equipment had been brought along, most places lacked the assistance of automated equipment. This thankless job soon disheartened the young masters of the power sector, who one by one transferred to other places, joining the army and navy, or going to the Planning Department… In the blink of an eye, only the original Minister of Energy, [Chang Kaishen][y0y010], and a few “technical elites” he had painstakingly persuaded to stay—Liu Tom being one of them—were left.

Chang Kaishen was also disheartened by this. After dividing the main tasks among his few key subordinates, he began to ignore matters related to electricity. Because this shortcoming in the power sector couldn’t be remedied in the short term, the energy policy planned by the Planning Department was mainly to fully “steam-powerize” and “gasify.”

Steam engines, boilers, and gasifiers sprang up like mushrooms in every corner of Lin’gao. The demand for coal far exceeded that for electricity, so Minister Chang Kaishen’s main focus shifted to the logistics and dispatch of coal. He gradually became an expert in logistics.

After this major setback, the power sector inevitably experienced several accidents of varying sizes, even burning out a 10kV transformer. The 10kV circuit from Bairen Beach to Bopu was shut down. The burned-out transformer was the result of the two sets of generators being connected in parallel, and then a sudden power outage in Bopu caused a load shedding that was not timely enough. In fact, connecting two sets of units with vastly different operating characteristics and supplying power to two areas with extremely mismatched loads was far beyond the capabilities of the Yuanlao Yuan’s industrial system. Although the power sector had people who had built power stations, worked in grid dispatch, written papers on smart grids, and even designed unmanned substations, this did not mean they could quickly manage a power grid composed of various frequently starting and stopping motor users.

As the saying goes, one finds life in a desperate situation. The remaining few, relying only on themselves, picked up their old professional books and searched for information in the Great Library. Finally, after diligently recording various data for over a year and constantly coordinating with the factories, the power station’s operation finally stabilized. By 1630, Lin’gao’s power generation had finally gotten on the right track. The power sector even had the spare capacity to teach a few naturalized citizens to assist in manning the power station.

In the following years, the power company successively installed several more hydroelectric generator units and carried out some modifications to the existing equipment—mainly “steam-powerizing” and “gasifying” the power sources of the original portable steam engine generator units and diesel generator units to adapt to local conditions.

In this way, the Lin’gao Power Company had managed to maintain this small-scale 10kV power grid and two interconnected power stations until now.

We have almost no sense of presence in the entire Lin’gao system, Liu Tom thought. With this gloomy mood, he went back to the outer room, signed the duty log from last night, and the naturalized citizen electrician on the night shift could go off duty.

Liu Tom then went to inspect the machine room of the hydroelectric station next to the dispatch center. The capacity of the Bairen Hydroelectric Station had been expanded to three 200kW hydro-turbine generators, with a total generation capacity of 600kW. It was currently the main force of Lin’gao’s power supply. Two of the units brought from the old world had not yet been installed—they would be installed after the Wenlan River regulation project was fully completed.

Everything in the machine room seemed normal. The hydroelectric generators were all running, emitting a humming sound. He was not a power generation expert, so he had no real experience with this. It was purely a routine matter, at most listening for any unusual noises. The naturalized citizen worker on duty respectfully brought him the duty log. He looked at it; inspections and maintenance had been done on time, and the generator’s output voltage was relatively stable. He signed the log.

Finally, he went to the power engineering team to prepare to lead a patrol.

The naturalized citizen electricians scheduled for patrol that day were lined up at the door. Under Liu Tom’s watchful eye, they tested their test pens and put on the necessary protective equipment.

Liu Tom put on his safety helmet, scanned the naturalized citizen electricians wearing rattan helmets, work clothes, and canvas bags, and raised a hand, shouting, “Safety first, prevention is key! Life is precious, safety first!”

The electricians raised their arms in response, shouting, “Safe production is everyone’s responsibility! Obey the rules and ensure safety!”