SET hands over "Kaiser Friedrich" with electric drive
After 137 years, the "Kaiser Friedrich" is no longer steam-powered. In the Genthin shipyard of SET Schiff- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft Tangermünde mbH, the ship with a length of 30 meters and a weight of about one hundred tons received a modern electric drive and is now much more ecologically positioned.
Between 1997 and 2009, the "Kaiser Friedrich" with the lettering "Deutsches Technikmuseum" (German Museum of Technology) was underway in Berlin, primarily running historic city tours from the Nikolaiviertel. However, the operation of the ship became increasingly uneconomical due to the increased personnel requirements and the large amount of diesel needed to fire the steam engine, and was soon also no longer ecologically sustainable.
Since April of this year, the ship has been retrofitted by the Genthin shipbuilding specialists - a "Torqeedo Deep Blue high-performance propulsion system" with lithium-ion high-voltage batteries with a total output of 400 kilowatt hours was installed.
The smokestack was not removed, however, because it simply belongs to the former steamer - it is part of its character.
At dawn on October 24, the "Kaiser Friedrich" departed Genthin and returned to Berlin.
With the start of the new excursion season in 2024, the "Kaiser Friedrich" can now once again be on the move in Berlin's inner city waters.
