Chinese state-owned enterprise COSCO Shipping has just launched the world’s largest pure electric container ship to sea. The Green Water 01 is a 10,000+ ton fully-electric vessel that sets a new benchmark for sustainability in maritime logistics.
The China Ocean Shipping Company, abbreviated as COSCO, is a multinational state-owned conglomerate headquartered in Shanghai specializing in ocean shipping. Despite the confusingly similar name to the popular American retail chain Costco, COSCO Shipping was formed as a subsidiary in 2016 after an approved merger between COSCO and China Shipping.
The COSCO group is China’s largest shipping line, operating hundreds of container vessels per day while also shipping vehicles for Chinese automakers to export electric vehicles to new markets abroad, including Europe.
In alignment with the ongoing movement towards electrification, COSCO has developed a mega-sized container ship that’s fully electric and has entered operation in China.
According to posts on COSCO Shipping’s Wechat page as well as local media, the Green Water 01 electric container ship completed its maiden voyage safely, and was berthed by local maritime safety authorities at the Yangshan Port.
The ship measures 119.2 meters long overall, which is about the size of a regulation football field, with a molded beam of 23.6 meters, a molded depth of 9 meters, and a maximum speed of 19.4 km/h. The ship is powered by a massive battery pack with a capacity of over 50,000 kWh. As a point of comparison, this is roughly 609 times the battery capacity of a large electric SUV like the VinFast VF 9 (82 kWh – standard range). COSCO says the battery modules can be arranged based on the voyage length, with the ship capable of adding an additional 1,600 kWh of electricity to its containers for extended range.
