On July 4th, at Huangshan Scenic Area, a helicopter airlifted power equipment weighing a total of 124.8 tons in batches to the 35kV Bai’e Ling (White Goose Ridge) Substation for power equipment upgrades. This marks the first time in China that core substation equipment has been “modularly airlifted.”

The 35kV Bai’e Ling Substation is located in the core scenic area of Huangshan, at an altitude of 1,700 meters, making it the highest substation in East China. Established in 1997, it currently has two 2.5 MW main transformers and one 5 MW main transformer. It is responsible for supplying power to 17 key users including scenic area cableways and hotels, serving over one million tourists annually. To further improve power reliability in the scenic area, a comprehensive upgrade was launched in April this year, including capacity expansion of the main transformers and replacement of switchgear, to meet the future electricity demands of the scenic area.

The biggest challenge of this upgrade lies in equipment transportation. Bai’e Ling Substation is located in a high mountain area inaccessible to engineering vehicles, and the equipment is large and requires high precision — a single transformer weighs as much as 13 tons. Traditional manual transport would be time-consuming, inefficient, and inconvenient to tourists. In response, State Grid Huangshan Power Company innovatively developed a “modular air transport” plan involving deep factory disassembly, precise aviation packaging, helicopter hoisting, and precise reassembly on the mountaintop.

To avoid damage to vegetation during construction, the company optimized the hoisting flight paths multiple times, conducted trial flights in advance, and avoided important trees and tourist trails. During the airlift, power equipment weighing 124.8 tons was disassembled into 95 independent modules, none of which occupied the scenic area trails. The helicopter hovered at 50 meters altitude and used specially designed slings to hoist and deliver materials, minimizing ground vegetation impact. Simultaneously, 35 tons of waste materials were airlifted down the mountain to reduce secondary pollution. The entire transportation process took only 10 days.

Currently, the equipment hoisting is proceeding in an orderly manner, with the project expected to be operational by the end of August. After this upgrade, the power supply capacity of Bai’e Ling Substation will increase by 50%, meeting the electricity demands of Huangshan Scenic Area for the next 20 years.

Source: Anhui News