"As a major in electrical engineering and automation, I was really happy to receive the offer from the company, which offered me a lot of space for development," he said. "So, despite the long distance from my hometown, I still chose to come to the city to work and live. I felt very proud to contribute to the scientific and technological progress of our country."

Since then, Zhu has dedicated himself to turbogenerator design and has undertaken a number of new product development tasks, some of which have helped fill in gaps in China and even in the world.

"At HEC, I had access to lots of newer and more advanced technologies and equipment used for making power generating equipment," he said. "What I learned at university was barely enough for me to do my job properly, so I had to learn and practice more."

By day, Zhu talked to more experienced colleagues and made notes on everything he learned.

He also often went to workshops to follow production progress, as well as find out what the problems were and find ways to resolve them.

After work, he spent much of his spare time learning by reading books and watching online videos.

In May, he was named one of the "Ten Outstanding Young Persons of HE" and the "Worker Model of HEC", becoming the youngest company member to receive the latter honor.

With the rapid development of ultrahigh voltage direct current engineering in China, there was an urgent need to develop a fast dynamic response synchronous condenser.

When Zhu and his team were tasked in 2015 with designing a 300 Mvar synchronous condenser, the first in the world, they had no idea where to begin.

"We didn't have any technical references," he said. "We had to work on our own."

They spent their time researching and sometimes stayed in the office for several days at a time.