We are proud to announce a co-funded project of € 2,5 million between maxwell+spark and the Just Transition Fund (JTF) Rijnmond for the development and scaling of our diesel-free transport refrigeration system, advantage.li.
The JTF is a new European fund specifically targeting the shift of carbon-intensive industrial areas from fossil fuels to sustainable alternatives. It focuses on both the transformation of industries and addressing the associated labour market impacts. The primary goal of the JTF is to facilitate a fair and equitable energy transition for regions heavily reliant on fossil fuels, taking into consideration social, economic, and environmental factors.
Our advantage.li system has the potential to really make a difference towards this goal in the Rotterdam region. Advantage.li can be used not only to electrify Transport Refrigeration Units (TRU’s), but to replace diesel gensets, including those underslung on trailers to run refrigerated shipping containers (reefers). About 6300 reefers move through the Rotterdam port each day and we estimate that these reefers alone may cause more pollution than all the cars in the city.
The negative environmental and health costs of this are obvious. Replacing one traditional TRU with an advantage.li one, is equivalent to taking about 20 diesel cars off the road in terms of CO2 emissions, and equivalent to taking about 150 diesel cars off the road in terms particulate emissions.
With the JTF subsidy, we can deepen our research, evolve the advantage.li product line and through that, allow our green technology to scale-up. The need is there, and we believe we can help move industry to more sustainable alternatives.