The new ship lift in Niederfinow: Customised lighting for a monumental engineering marvel

The new ship lift in Niederfinow, Brandenburg, north-east of Berlin, is a giant functional machine and architectural attraction in one. Since its commissioning in 2022, it has been lifting ships up to 110 metres long 36 metres from the Old Oder to the level of the Oder-Havel Canal in less than 20 minutes – and back again. Project-specific LED street and area lighting luminaires and projectors from WE-EF ensure optimum visibility conditions.

A ship’s hoist is applied physics: its water-filled trough always weighs the same, because a ship displaces exactly as much water as it weighs itself. Large counterweights equalise the load completely. The power of the drive system therefore only has to overcome the friction, the starting forces and small differences in the water level. Despite this elegantly simple principle, ship lifts are nevertheless gigantic and complex systems in practice. This makes them a rarity – there are currently only three in operation in Germany, two of which are in Niederfinow. Here, as part of the Oder-Havel waterway, they connect Berlin and Szczecin, overcoming a height difference of 36 metres. Opened in 1934, the old hoist is still regarded as a masterpiece of engineering: reliable and undaunted, it does its job, but is now too small for modern inland cargo ships and has become a bottleneck.

A new building of superlatives

The new boat lift is a structure of superlatives. Planning began back in 1992 and the construction period lasted from 2008 until the official commissioning in October 2022. With its four pylons made of exposed concrete, it is 133 metres long and almost 55 metres high. The trough is 12.50 metres wide, 4 metres deep and weighs an enormous 9800 tonnes when filled with water. The old hoist, which is to remain in operation until 2025, has always been a popular attraction for visitors to the region. For this reason, a visitor walkway has also been integrated into the new building, allowing fascinating insights into the technology at a height of 40 metres. Ten metres higher still, between the eastern pylons, is the control station, which is manned by just one person during normal operation. The entire, largely automated operating processes and safety systems of the hoist were intensively trialed and tested in advance on a 3D model, the so-called digital twin.    

High demands on the lighting

Entering the ship lift is demanding precision work, even for experienced bargemen. Optimal visibility conditions are correspondingly important – and in view of the operating hours of the new boat lift, which, apart from during a winter break in January and February, extend from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day, optimal lighting conditions are also essential. The requirements for this are set out in DIN 67500 for the lighting of lock systems.

The standard-compliant implementation planning for the lighting was developed by the engineering office EIT from Stendal on the basis of calculations by the electrical planners from DriveCon together with WE-EF. The backbone of the concept is formed by PFL540 street and area lighting luminaires, which are mounted on tilting columns from the specialist Pfeiffer at different mounting heights (8 m in the forebays and 6 m on the trough) – both along the walls of the upper and lower forebays and on the trough itself. The modern LED luminaire scored points not only with its efficiency and the high precision of its lens optics, but also with its flexibility and adaptability: as optimum illumination of the walls is essential for the safety of the operation, the planners specified a customised hybrid optic with the WE-EF consultants. It consists of two LED modules with asymmetric side throw light distribution [S60] to the front and two further LED modules rotated by 180° with asymmetric side throw light distribution [S70] to the rear.

Customised special solutions

The system is illuminated throughout in the neutral white colour temperature 4000 K. Depending on the height of the pole, luminaires with 36 W, 54 W and 72 W connected loads are used to achieve the required illuminance levels on the target area. For the critical area of the trough and holding gates, the operators wanted additional, targeted illumination. WE-EF solved this task with a further modification to the luminaires: The columns in question were fitted with luminaires that have a mounting plate on the housing for additional projectors. WE-EF fitted these luminaires ex works with its FLC141 LED projectors with a “medium beam” characteristic. Finally, the manufacturer also showed its flexibility in the colour of the luminaires: with a powdercoat finish in “golden yellow” (RAL 1004), they blend in with the blue tubular steel poles in the colour concept specified by the lead architect Udo Beuke (Federal Waterways Engineering and Research Institute) with accents in yellow and blue on the otherwise untreated, light grey building structure made of exposed concrete with a glass façade.

The spectacular new construction of the ship lift in Niederfinow strengthens freight transport on water as an ecologically beneficial mode of transport. The durable, highly efficient and sustainably produced lighting technology from WE-EF fits in perfectly with this – not least because it was customised to the demanding project thanks to the manufacturer’s flexibility and expertise.

Project data

Project: Neues Schiffshebewerk in Niederfinow, Hebewerkstr. 70a, 16248 Niederfinow, https://schiffshebewerk-niederfinow.com
Client: New Waterways Construction Office Berlin
Architecture: Federal Institute for Hydraulic Engineering, Karlsruhe
Electrical planning and lighting calculation: DriveCon, Dettelbach
Electrical and lighting implementation planning: EIT, Stendal
Structural design: Werner Sobek AG, Stuttgart
Check of design planning/statics: Krebs + Kiefer, Berlin
Execution: Bilfinger Construction/Implenia Construction, Raunhein, NL Berlin; DSD Stahlbau, Saarlouis; Johann Bunte, Papenburg; Siemag Tecberg, Haiger; ABB, Mannheim, NL Magdeburg
Construction management: Berlin Waterways Construction Office
Completion: October 2022
Photos: Frieder Blickle für WE-EF