Spalding, UK: Gist has begun trials of the hydraulic Ecogen power generators for trailer fridges.
The move is to reduce fuel consumption as well as CO2 and Nox emissions. The trial, running over three months, is at Gist’s site in Spalding.
Ecogen, made in the UK by Hultsteins, uses a generator connected to the engine power take-off and plugs in to any fridge with mains electric operation.
The hydraulic generators are an environmentally-friendly solution that allows an existing diesel powered unit to achieve the same environmental classification as the vehicle by converting the unit to electric power, eliminating the need for diesel. This reduces the vehicle’s total fuel consumption, and lowers carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide and particle emissions.
Mick Pethard, head of engineering, Gist, said: “The hybrid-drive system harnesses kinetic energy from the truck and recycles it into electrical energy for the transport refrigeration unit. By taking power via the rear of the engine into this equipment, which converts this into electricity to power the fridge on electric rather than red diesel – which means no CO2 being created by the fridge.”
Hultsteins calculates that an average fridge system, consuming around 3-5 litres of diesel per hour and running for 2,500 hours per annum, will produce approximately 26 tonnes of carbon per year and with an expected price hike of around 46 pence per litre for red diesel, this also amounts to an additional annual cost of around £5,700 per fridge trailer.
“These figures simply cannot be ignored,” says Graham Usher, managing director, Eco Truck Fridge, the Hultsteins sales agent in the UK.
“Not only from an environmental standpoint but also commercially, Ecogen can help temperature-controlled operators mitigate the potential impact of running a conventional fridge system.”
