Ai Yuangao is the Deputy Director of the Electrical Maintenance Department at the Three Gorges Hydropower Plant (TGHPP).

After his doctoral degree,

Ai Yuangao has stayed dedicated to the frontline of electric power production for over ten years,

led his team to crack the hard nut of system upgrades  of the TGHPP,

and integrated artificial intelligence into hydropower operations.

As an outstanding manager of the key national project,

he has been honored as one of the 1,462

recipients of the 2026 National May 1 Labor Medal.

With wisdom and dedication,

he embodies the mission and responsibility of workers in the new era.

Inside the bright and spacious power house of the TGHPP, rows of generating units run around the clock, transforming surging river currents into clean energy for remote transmission. Amid this realm of steel and electrical circuits, one figure moves nimbly between control panels and wiring, sharp-eyed and steadfast. He is Ai Yuangao, Deputy Director of the Electrical Maintenance Department at the TGHPP.

In 2012, Ai Yuangao graduated with a doctoral degree and joined the TGHPP. Though he could have pursued a tranquil career in scientific research, he chose instead to immerse himself in on-site production. Rising from a grassroots operator to a core team member, a team head, and eventually a department director, he has walked this path for over a decade. When friends asked if he felt underused as a PhD working daily with cables and control cabinets, he smiled and replied: "The production floor is the very foundation and stage for electrical engineering."

In April 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected the Three Gorges Project and hailed it as "a landmark project and three exemplary models", emphasizing that "key national projects must be firmly held in our own hands". "The earnest guidance from General Secretary Xi Jinping has fueled us with immense motivation, constantly inspiring us to pursue scientific and technological breakthroughs, conquer core technologies, and safeguard the safe and stable operation of our key national project," Ai Yuangao recalled.

In 2019, the computer-based supervisory control system (CSCS) of Unit 8 underwent a technical upgrading. Serving as the "brain" of the generating unit, CSCS governs the operation of nearly all equipment, making it indispensable. Inside the control cabinets, over 6,000 control cables were intricately intertwined like neural networks, each one vital to the unit's safe and stable operation.

During system installation and commissioning, the output data remained inconsistent. After repeated troubleshooting and analysis, the team suspected a fault in one of the control cables.

"Replacing the cables would require full reconnection and tight construction schedules; yet leaving the issue unresolved could trigger system malfunctions or even unit shutdowns due to signal loss, creating severe safety risks," Ai Yuangao resolved without hesitation to dismantle and rewire all installed cables. He led the team to work through the night, disconnecting, replacing, and reattaching every wire. This was not just manual labor, but a grueling test of patience. It was 4 a.m. when all 6,000-plus control cables were verified one by one and all signals returned to normal.

Such arduous tasks were commonplace during the upgrading. Communication program outages, signal feedback errors—new hurdles emerged constantly. "We are trailblazers with no prior guidance or standard solutions; we can only explore step by step," Ai Yuangao stated. On late overtime nights, he once asked himself: "Why choose the hardest path when so many easier options exist?" But the thought of his duty to protect the key national project, paired with his teammates' dedication to verifying cables and sorting logic diagrams, erased all doubt—driven by team trust and a profound sense of responsibility.

In Ai Yuangao's office, the reporter saw thick binders of control logic diagrams. "This is not my individual achievement, but the collective work of the team. Every project leader in our department verifies signals, programs parameters, and resolves emergencies on-site by day, then combs through circuit and logic diagrams late into the night," Ai Yuangao said calmly. "We compiled thousands of pages of control logic diagrams and drafted over 200,000 Chinese characters of technical specifications, which sounds impressive. Yet these results come naturally from steady, daily work. The first rule of electrical work is to clarify logic and circuit diagrams."

Over the years, Ai Yuangao has led his team to complete 47 major upgrading and renovation projects at the TGHPP, including the Local Control Unit (LCU) for 700 MW generating units, the left-bank CSCS, and the control system for the supporting power station. The team has conquered dozens of technical barriers and developed multiple patented technologies. During the CSCS upgrading of Unit 12, the team detected erratic temperature fluctuations in the stator slots, pinpointed the anti-interference software filtration defect, and restored stable temperature readings via algorithm optimization and the installation of new filtration modules.

Patents and academic papers have flourished from frontline practice. To date, Ai Yuangao's team has secured over 100 authorized patents, won over 50 provincial-ministerial and industry-level awards, and published over 110 technical papers. These technological achievements have solved practical O&M challenges at the TGHPP and contributed valuable expertise to China's hydropower industry.

Ai Yuangao now looks to the future. He has led his team to drive the R&D and application of over 30 sets of intelligent robots for turbine penstock inspection and repair, power house patrol inspection, and other tasks, advancing the deep integration of artificial intelligence and hydropower operations. "Scientific and technological innovation and on-site work safety are mutually reinforcing; we must proactively embrace artificial intelligence technology," he noted.

Ai Yuangao has also refined a distinctive team-building approach. He created a talent development model of "centralized training + self-study + assessment" to build a clear growth path for team members. In recent years, over 10 team members have earned industry and corporate technical expert titles. The Ai Yuangao Innovation Studio has been recognized as a Hubei Provincial Workers (Model Workers, Artisans) Innovation Studio.

For more than a decade, Ai Yuangao has lived by the principle of "rooting in the generating units". With meticulous craftsmanship, the courage to innovate, and selfless dedication, he safeguards the key national project, embodying the responsibility and commitment of an outstanding manager of the key national project.