Three charging piles for cargo ships were recently built at the Shulanghu Iron Ore Transfer Terminal in Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province.

The charging piles are still being debugged and will be put into use soon, according to the Zhoushan branch of the State Grid Corporation of China.

The charging piles can provide approximately 6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity to cargo ships annually, said Shi Dengchao, an employee at Zhoushan Shulanghu Terminal Co Ltd.

According to Lu Yonglun, an employee at the Zhoushan branch of the State Grid, two 2000-kilowatt-ampere transformers and over 3,200 meters of cable were installed to support the charging piles.

The charging piles are expected to cut the emission of about 1,363 metric tons of carbon dioxide, 29 tons of nitrogen oxide, 22 tons of sulfur oxide and 3 tons of particulate matter, said local authorities.

In June 2019, Zhoushan Shulanghu Terminal Co Ltd signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Zhoushan branch of State Grid in a bid to promote the construction of charging piles and relevant facilities.

The Shulanghu Iron Ore Transfer Terminal, which is under the jurisdiction of Ningbo-Zhoushan Port, is the largest port for transferring iron ore, with annual cargo throughput of over 100 million tons since it started to cooperate with Vale SA – the world's biggest iron ore producer – in 2019.

In the first 10 months of 2019, the overall cargo throughput of the terminal exceeded 47.5 million tons.