Economic Watch: Rise of energy storage power stations creates “green-collar” jobs

SHANGHAI, Oct. 1 (Xinhua) — Within the premises of a fisheries company on Changxing Island of Shanghai, multiple cold storage facilities containing seafood caught by incoming vessels have been kept up and running day and night.
A newly commissioned energy storage power station is located in the vicinity of these cold storage facilities. It belongs to the first industrial and commercial energy storage project of Shanghai Power Industrial & Commercial Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of State Grid Corporation of China.
By installing energy storage facilities, it is possible to store low-priced electricity during off-peak hours and use it during peak hours when the electricity price is higher, which helps the fisheries company reduce the electricity bill generated by its cold storage facilities, according to Li Liang, an executive at Shanghai Power Industrial & Commercial Co., Ltd.
Operator Wu Xiaochun patrols the station every day during the warmest months from July to September. He surveys the operating status of equipment and essential modules, as well as fire extinguishing devices, in order to maintain the safe operation of the station.
Wu is an energy storage power station maintenance administrator, a job that is among 19 new professions added recently to the country’s list of officially recognized occupations. Wu jokingly identifies himself as a “green-collar” worker.
The new occupation came into being amid the country’s green energy transition and its drive to attain goals of reaching peak carbon emissions before 2030 and attaining carbon neutrality before 2060.
With an increasing number of energy storage projects being launched nationwide, there is a growing demand for maintenance administrators.
In addition to on-site inspections, an energy storage power station maintenance administrator is also tasked with monitoring the station’s online operating platform, and making real-time adjustments to charging and discharging time windows according to fluctuations in electricity prices, as well as changes in power demand.
“The timing of charging and discharging is crucial to the economic benefits of our users. Therefore, our job is not only to ensure the safety of energy storage systems, but also to do the math for our users,” said Xu Yunhai, another maintenance administrator at the station, adding that they can remotely monitor the operation of the station 24 hours a day via their mobile phones.
An energy-storage system charges when wind power or photovoltaic power generates a large volume of electricity or when the power consumption is low, and discharges when power generation is low or consumption is high. It can smooth the unstable output of photovoltaic power or wind power to increase the proportion of renewable energy in the grid, playing a vital role in the mass use of renewable energy.
With Shanghai’s electricity steadily becoming greener, the expansion of new energy generation installations, such as wind power and photovoltaics, poses challenges to the stable operation and supply-demand balance of the power system, said Li, adding that the role of energy storage is becoming increasingly important.
In the first six months after the inauguration of the energy storage project of the fisheries company on Changxing Island in January 2024, it helped the company save around 30,000 yuan (about 4,280 U.S. dollars) in electricity costs.
Given that Shanghai has introduced a policy of “deep valley electricity price,” which drastically curtails prices in some designated off-peak hours, the fisheries company’s electricity bills are expected to be further slashed thanks to the energy storage power station.
China’s energy storage capacity is expanding to facilitate the utilization of growing renewable power.
The country’s installed new-type energy storage capacity had reached 44.44 gigawatts as of the end of June, expanding 40 percent compared with the end of 2023, according to data from the National Energy Administration. ■