NANJING (Xinhua) -- Two 385-meter-high transmission towers, the tallest of their kind in the world, were connected to power cables running across the Yangtze River, China 's largest, on Monday.

According to the Jiangsu Electricity Co., Ltd., affiliated to the national power grid, 24 cables weighing about 410 tons and extending for more than 2.5 kilometers were installed between the two towers over the busiest waterway in China, as part of a project to transmit electricity with a capacity of 500 kilovolts.

The electricity transmission project is expected to come into operation next year. When it starts operating, 28.9 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity generated by renewable energy will be transmitted from the north of the Yangtze River to the south, aiming to supply electricity to eight million households.