• Not only exceptional sustainable, ECOOLTEC’s purely electrically driven transport refrigeration units also offer low operating costs
• ECOOLTEC systems can be combined with all truck powertrains and operated via generator, a battery or a separate power generator
• In May, ECOOLTEC will present its technology for the first time in Italy at Transpotec Logitec in Milan

German transport refrigeration specialist ECOOLTEC Grosskopf GmbH has developed a genuinely innovative generation of purely electrically driven transport refrigeration units that are extraordinarily economical and, thanks to their natural refrigerant, cool cargo in a particularly sustainable manner. In addition, the units are extremely powerful and highly efficient. That provides low operational costs, which makes them an exceptionally economic choice for fleets. ECOOLTEC systems can be used with all currently available truck powertrains: diesel, compressed or liquefied natural gas and electric.

ECOOLTEC has developed a revolutionary generation of transport refrigeration machines for use on commercial vehicles. The refrigeration systems can be operated electrically from the truck engine via their in-house high-performance alternator, a battery, or a separate power alternator and therefore do not require an integrated diesel engine. Unlike widely used diesel refrigeration machines, the ECOOLTEC unit produces neither local pollutant nor CO2 emissions in battery operation, and up to 98 per cent fewer emissions via the alternator drive. ECOOLTEC systems can be combined with all truck powertrains, regardless of whether they run on diesel fuel, compressed or liquefied natural gas, or electricity.

The technological highlight of the system is the use of sustainable refrigerants. Instead of the fluorinated refrigerants R452A and R410A, which are predominantly used in transport refrigeration and have Global Warming Potential (GWP) values of more than 2,000; ECOOLTEC relies on natural refrigerants with negligible GWP.
Highly efficient refrigeration process reduces truck fuel consumption

In addition to sustainability, the ECOOLTEC system provide several convincing economic benefits. Hydrocarbons are characterised by the high energy efficiency of the refrigeration process, meaning that ECOOLTEC refrigeration systems have an enormous refrigeration capacity in terms of size and weight to meet the extreme temperature safety demands in food distribution, even in hot countries such as Italy.

This is confirmed by German food wholesaler Ferdinand Bierbichler’s consumption records, which has been using 12 trucks with ECOOLTEC systems and with a gross vehicle weight of 12 tonnes since 2023. According to these records, the trucks with the TM182 require on average up to two litres less diesel per 100 kilometres on the same route and with the same number of door openings than the vehicles with the electrically driven reference system. The lower fuel consumption not only saves more than 300 tons of CO2 emissions, but almost € 2,000 operational costs per vehicle. The advantage over a diesel-powered transport refrigeration system would be even greater. Thanks to the alternator on the truck engine, the ECOOLTEC system requires 60 to 80 per cent less energy than a system powered by a stand-alone diesel engine for the same refrigeration capacity.

Natural refrigerants offer low operations costs, F-gases get more expensive

Natural refrigerants offer high availability at a competitive price, while synthetic refrigerants have recently become significantly more expensive, the reason for it being the shortage of quantities available on the market due to the F-Gas Regulation (EU) 2024/573 that initially restrict their use step by step (phase-down) and even rule them out by 2050 (phase-out). On the contrary, the ECOOLTEC system is future-proof and also scores highly in terms of service and maintenance.

By comparison, conventional transport refrigeration machines with a similar refrigeration capacity contain up to 14 kilogrammes of F-gas as refrigerant, depending on the specification, whereas the TM182 only needs 650 grammes of propene (R1270) and around 750 grammes of CO2 (R744) per refrigerant circuit, resulting in four independent and fully hermetic refrigeration circuits with reduced impact gases.

First fill with natural refrigerants slashes up to 14 tons of CO2 per truck

In addition to the economic benefits, the use of natural refrigerants saves up to 14 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per truck, simply by filling the TM182 with natural refrigerants instead of R452A. These savings don’t even include the reduction in refrigerant leakage thanks to the advanced design of ECOOLTEC’s TM182. Experience shows that up to 15 percent of the total refrigerant charge escapes from conventional transport refrigeration units each year, as the refrigerant circuits are not all fully hermetic, unlike the groundbreaking ECOOLTEC system.

Transport & Logistics Magazine – Driving The Industry Forward