At 22:00p.m., Dec 2,No. 8 Wuhan-Yangtze River President cruise was slowly pulling into the Zigui-Yichang Port. The shore power staff who had been waiting at the port for a while quickly installed shore power cables for the cruise. The crew got on the pontoon and quickly scanned the QR code on the shore power equipment. With the approval activated by the QR code scanning through Shore Power Cloud NetworkAPP, the cruise was soon connected to shore power. The whole process took less than 15 minutes.

　　“We used to rely on the fuel to generate electricity. The noises were unbearable and tourists’experience was very unpleasant, not to mention hazardous pollution and high costs. Now we go in for the port shore power. Without any smoke or noises, this new equipment saves time, energy and cost.”said Fang Xiang, the captain of No. 8 Wuhan-Yangtze River President cruise.

　　At its initial stage of development, the shore power charging piles, as a means to provide clean energy, did not attract much attention at all. However, they have now become quite popular and have to be booked in advance for its service.Fang Xiang made a comparison,"This time I moored at Zigui Port for 18 hours,consuming 2,452kWh ofthe electricity. The price of shore powerwas 1.6 yuan per kilowatt-hour. If diesel wereused to generate electricityinstead, it would cost 2.5 yuan per kilowatt-hour. So the shore power could savenearly 2,000 yuan in terms of energy costs. "

　　Now,at Zigui Port, the ecological benefits of shore power have been widely recognized and warmly welcomed. By “Replacing Oil with Electricity”, a 10,000 ton cruise can reduce fuel consumption by 1.5 tons and carbon dioxide emissions by 4.7 tonsduring berthing, which equals the sameamount of pollution emitted by about 300 family cars travelling30,000 km; with 20 ships in the port, it is equivalent to reducing the pollution emitted by 6,000 family cars everysingleday.

　　The tourism industry was not immune to the epidemic outbreak at the beginning of this year. As a consequence, the Three Gorges shore power supply, which mainly serves shore power for cruises, got affected by it as well. Therefore, the Yichang-Yangtze River Three Gorges Shore Power Operation Service Company made good use of the off-peak period to vigorously upgradequality and efficiencyin order to prepare for the resumption of the industry. Moreover, the company has greatly increased the number of the ships withpower receiving facilities,from the previous 6 ships before the epidemic to the present-day 54 ships. The hull transformation has made it possible to finish the charging process within 15 minutes instead of theprevious 40 minutes, and reduced the manpower input from the original 20 people to 3/4 people.

　　"We have upgraded the access technology ofshore power, which enablesthe parallel connection of multiple ships, thus the number of ships that can simultaneouslyreceivepower fromZigui Port’s shore power facilities has been more than doubled.Currently, 12 shore power facilities can provide servicesfor 12 super-large luxury cruisesat the same time.” said Li Xingheng, the operation and maintenance team leader of the Yichang-Yangtze River Three Gorges Shore Power Operation Service Company.

　　To date, all shore power piles have been put into operation in Yichang section of the Yangtze River. On Nov. 30 this year, 63 commercial wharves and 2 anchorage shore power projects in the Yichang section of the Yangtze River had all been completed and put into operation, one month earlier than the scheduledtime. The cumulative shore power supply capacity reaches 25,100 kVA, and 165 sets of shore power piles (boxes) have been built, which can provide shore power for 184 passenger and cargo ships at the same time.

　　According to thestatistics, from Jan to Nov this year, with the shore power pilot zonein the Three Gorges Dam area as the leading force, the Yichang section of the Yangtze River had provided 3.26 million kwh shore power for 2,648 passenger and cargo ships. Afterthe completion of Yichang shore power project, it has provided 9.71 million kwh shore power for 4,354 passenger and cargo ships,tantamountto reducing 2,282 tons of fuel oil consumption and 7,188 tons of emitted harmful substances, saving about 7.76 million yuan(nearly 118.6 million US dollars)of energy cost for ships.(Reporter Zhao Jingyi; correspondent Li Zhifei)