Xuefeng Mountain Energy Equipment Safety National Observation and Research Station (hereafter referred to as the Xuefeng Station) was established in 2008. It was designed and constructed by a team led by Professor Jiang Xingliang of Electrical Engineering School at Chongqing University, focusing on the safety of power grid equipment and innovation in natural disaster defense. After 13 years of continuous development and improvement, the Xuefeng Station was officially approved as a National Observation and Research Station at the end of 2021. It stands as the only national-level field scientific observation platform in the energy and power sector.

The Xuefeng Station targets the national need for a “clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy system.” It focuses on the scientific issues and key technologies associated with the safety failure, malfunction, and defense of energy equipment under severe natural conditions such as snow and ice thawing, thunderstorms, and high humidity dense fog in Southwest and Central China regions. The station prioritizes three main areas: ice accretion and safety defense of energy equipment, lightning strikes and safety defense on energy equipment, and environmental adaptability and safety assurance of energy equipment. It conducts long-term, stable, standardized scientific observations and experimental research in these fields to advance the integration of energy safety science and technology with basic data from disciplines such as electrical, mechanical, information sciences, materials, environment, and meteorology, and to facilitate the creation of new disciplines.

The Xuefeng Station is located in the Xuefeng Mountains and Kunming quasi-stationary peak, spanning Chongqing, Hunan, Guangxi, and Guizhou provinces. Its natural conditions represent most regions in Southwest, South, Central, and East China, and parts of North, Northeast, and Northwest China, featuring extreme outdoor environments like ice cover, lightning strikes, high humidity, and ultraviolet radiation. This makes it a typical, representative, and universal site for extreme and complex conditions frequently encountered in China’s energy development and utilization, and cross-regional electricity transmission projects. The Xuefeng station covers an area of 100,000 square meters and is equipped with comprehensive scientific observational infrastructure and advanced instruments to support scientific observations and studies of the operational characteristics and environmental adaptability of power transmission and distribution, wind power, solar power, and microgrids, including devices and materials under complex environmental conditions such as ice and lightning. It also focuses on the formation process and mechanisms of natural disasters, risk assessment, early warning, defense, and disposal, lightning induction observations, theories of lightning propagation and electrical insulation, and research on new materials and applications.

LINK: https://xfs.cqu.edu.cn/index.htm