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On the Double Ninth Festival, a saying about elderly people became extremely popular online: "60 is exactly the age to strive!" Many treated it as a joke, but in Nantong, Jiangsu Province, 45 retired power employees with an average age of 68 turned it into reality: they travel through factory workshops, voluntarily helping enterprises solve electricity usage problems. Over 10 years, they have cumulatively reduced electricity costs by nearly 100 million yuan for more than 200 enterprises across the city. No performance reviews, not a penny of compensation — how did they "strive" to achieve such results?
Silver-haired volunteer team, why did it come about?
As a county-level industrial powerhouse on the north bank of the Yangtze River, Nantong Hai'an has gathered over a thousand industrial enterprises. Silk textiles, equipment manufacturing, and factories of all sizes operate day and night, but more than a decade ago, many enterprises could not use electricity well: transformers were "big horses pulling small carts," high-power equipment operated during peak hours, and electricians were replaced as frequently as a merry-go-round... Unscientific electricity management methods directly pushed up electricity costs, and they were difficult to reduce.
Yang Xuguang (third from left) and team members understanding electricity needs at an enterprise. On the other side, a large number of retired workers also faced a situation of "having no place to use their talents." Tian Ping is a former employee of State Grid Hai'an Power Supply Company, having served as the director of a 220kV substation, spending most of his life dealing with electricity, and retired in 2016. After retirement, Tian Ping always felt "there is still energy that cannot stay idle." By a chance opportunity, he chatted with Yang Xuguang, who had also retired and formerly worked in the marketing department, about this matter. The two hit it off immediately and decided to gather retired colleagues around them to establish a volunteer service team of elderly power science and technology workers, specifically to solve electricity usage problems for enterprises.
In 2016, led by Tian Ping and Yang Xuguang, the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Hai'an Power Supply Old Science and Technology Association Volunteer Service Team was formally established with 29 retired power supply employees. At the beginning of its establishment, the team spent 6 months, under the guidance of the Nantong Old Science and Technology Workers Association, conducting a "major health check" for more than 1,300 major industrial electricity users across Hai'an City: checking electricity consumption, electricity prices, transformer capacity, and power factors one by one, and screening out 23 enterprises with electricity usage difficulties that urgently needed to be solved.
Electricity bill invoices calculated by team members. Taking Nantong Yongda Pipe Industry Co., Ltd. as an example, in 2017, this enterprise's electricity cost remained high, with an average electricity price more than 0.2 yuan higher than the average electricity price for large industrial users in Hai'an at that time. Yang Xuguang personally led the team, diving into the enterprise's power distribution room and production workshops, comparing electricity bills and production reports, and immediately identified the reasons for high power consumption: continuous production enterprises chose the wrong basic electricity fee billing mode, and high-power equipment was concentrated during peak electricity price periods. To explain the problem more intuitively, Yang Xuguang used two A4 sheets of paper and more than 130 steps to recalculate and compare the enterprise's electricity bills for the previous months. In the end, the enterprise's person in charge accepted the suggestion on the spot and saved 1.12 million yuan in electricity costs that year.
Over ten years, they have written more than 80 enterprise electricity usage analysis reports, gained in-depth understanding of enterprise electricity management situations, and proposed more than 200 rectification suggestions. In practice, they continuously upgraded their services. Saving real money for enterprises, the team's reputation gradually spread, and more and more enterprises actively sought them out. At peak times, a member not only had to visit and serve two or three enterprises simultaneously but also had to study and research the latest electricity policies. To improve work efficiency and facilitate experience promotion, in 2021, the team distilled their service experience into the "screen, visit, research, disseminate" four-step method. During repeated visits, the team also discovered that behind enterprise electricity pain points, there are often deeper factors related to electricity price policies, power grid layout, and industrial energy planning. To benefit more entities from the root, the team, based on the latest electricity policies, spontaneously organized their service experience into summary reports and passed them upward through government platforms. Taking "Current Status of Electricity Prices for Major Industrial Users Citywide and Countermeasures to Reduce High Electricity Prices" as an example, the team deeply explored the common root causes of poor electricity management effectiveness in 412 enterprises, providing frontline practical references for power grid planning revision and business environment optimization.
Tian Ping (fourth from left) and team members understanding electricity needs at an enterprise. Over ten years, the team has cumulatively produced 19 research reports on high-quality industry development, of which 6 received instructions from local main leaders, and 2 research results won the second prize of Nantong City's Outstanding Suggestions. The team has successively been awarded the Jiangsu Outstanding Old Science and Technology Workers' Home, municipal and county-level advanced collectives 4 times, special awards 2 times, outstanding contribution awards, and other honors. In August 2026, the team's "Silver Hair Protects Electricity · Benefits Enterprises and Reduces Emissions" volunteer service project won the second prize in the provincial veteran cadre volunteer service project competition. This was the first time State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power won an award in this competition, and State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power was also the only enterprise unit to win an award in this competition.
Serving, and also learning
Up to now, this volunteer service team has reached 45 members, of which 20 hold senior professional titles, with expertise covering the entire chain of electricity management including electricity price policy, power grid operation, equipment maintenance, and energy efficiency control. The team's personnel scale is still continuously expanding. "Expanding the team" also requires "strengthening capabilities." Starting in 2025, the silver-haired volunteer team actively embraced new scenarios in the energy field, establishing four special research groups: "AI Production Applications," "Photovoltaic Power Generation," "Small and Micro Patents," and "'15th Five-Year Plan' Planning," continuously exploring new enterprise needs and empowering long-term power grid planning.
Members of the State Grid Jiangsu Electric Power Hai'an Power Supply Old Science and Technology Association Volunteer Service Team understanding the operation of energy storage projects. The effect of capability upgrading is most clearly seen in individual service cases: facing enterprises' hard requirements for green electricity proportions in orders, as well as the reality of their own production capacity having peaks and valleys, the volunteer team adapted measures to local conditions and proposed optimized plans for supporting energy storage construction for 16 enterprises, promoting coordinated matching of wind, solar, and storage. Including this service measure, after the team's various enterprise-benefiting services were implemented in 2025, they cumulatively saved more than 10 million kilowatt-hours of electricity for enterprises and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 6,000 tons.
The "old employer" also silently helps. State Grid Hai'an Power Supply Company regularly organizes team members to communicate the latest electricity price policies and industrial technologies, allowing the team not only to give play to their remaining heat but also to replenish new momentum; it provides promotional brochures and venues for communication, making it convenient for enterprises to become familiar with electricity handling procedures. "What we pursue is not making electricity prices as low as possible, but saving social energy and returning production costs to a reasonable range. When enterprises obtain real benefits, we gain a sense of achievement and fulfillment." Whenever talking about the bits and pieces of volunteer service, Yang Xuguang always keeps this sentence on his lips.
Learning the latest agricultural production technologies at the local modern agricultural industrial park. Age is never a shackle on ability, and later life should not have only one form. Is 60 exactly the age to strive? They have no time to answer — in the workshops, there are still one difficult problem after another waiting for them. May all elderly people in the world be provided for, gain something, and enjoy happiness in old age, forever young, forever passionate.
Proofreader: Zhang Jingchao; Editor: Lingling;
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