Amsterdam's canal boats are going electric

As we glide silently up Amsterdam's busy waterways on an unseasonably warm autumn morning, boat company owner Rik Kooij, 38, admits that "canal water runs in my veins".

Ever since his mechanically-minded grandfather renovated a bicycle, then a motorbike, then a boat back in the 1920s, Mr Kooij's family has been at the heart of Amsterdam's tourist canal boat business.

The Prinses Irene, which once took Winston Churchill up the canals, is silent because it's electric. All you hear is the swoosh of the water being churned up by the propeller. And there are no acrid diesel fumes to spoil the experience.

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Now the Reederij Kooij boat company he runs with his wife Daniela is one of the largest ploughing Amsterdam's famous canals. It owns 32 boats out of about 150 catering to the city's many tourists.

But when the municipality of Amsterdam stipulated that all boats would have to switch from diesel to electric power by 2025, in an effort to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, boat companies were faced with a huge - and expensive - challenge.

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He has converted six boats so far - it takes about three months to strip out the old diesel engine and install the electric engine and batteries. A typical 23m (75m) tourist boat needs about 66 batteries, he says, making the conversion cost around 165,000 to 250,000 euros ($189,000 to $287,000; £145,000 to £220,000) per boat.

But the engines are quieter, cleaner and cheaper to run - boat companies should recoup their costs in about 12 years, according to the Paris Process on Mobility and Climate, a body supporting sustainable transport projects.

They can be recharged in about 10 hours and last about two days between charges, says Sigrid Hanekamp, an application engineer from Dutch battery company Lithium Werks, which supplied the batteries for Reederij Kooij's boats.

These batteries are not your typical lead-acid type traditionally used in cars, or even the lithium-ion ones becoming standard in electric vehicles, she explains. They're lithium-iron-phosphate, a chemistry Lithium Werks believes is more durable and environmentally friendly.

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