Refrigerated transport: the electric option is more and more considered

Road freight transport is a crucial element. Trucks alone carry 77% of all goods transported by land in the European Union and 72% in the USA. Integral part is the refrigerated transport, whose global market is rapidly expanding, fuelled by the growing food trade, by the increase of the consumption of perishable products, by the expansion of the e-commerce and by the attention to the reduction of food wastes.

According to the report by Astute Analytica, the global market of refrigerated trucks is expected to exceed 16,1 billion dollars by 2032, versus 6.5 billion dollars in 2023.

The consumption increase of perishable products, such as fruit, vegetables, dairy products and meat that must be delivered, is one of the crucial reasons resulting in an increased demand for refrigerated transport. Just in 2022, the global food trade stored goods worth over 8,000 billion dollars, amounting to almost 10% of the global economy.

The sector of the refrigerated transport is living a relevant transformation, due to the regulations that require a more and more targeted control of temperatures and of quality, since on a global scale about 14% of the food produced is lost between the collection and the retail sale, while around 17% is wasted in the retail sale and at consumption level, owing to the scarce provisioning chain of refrigerating cells. However, a significant evolution is expected and it will imply the need of drastically decreasing emissions.

How will it be possible to knock down emissions? Electrification is more than an option.

The number of vehicles and of emissions increases

The number of circulating refrigerated vehicles is rising, especially in the Countries of the South of the world. To hit the Targets of Sustainable Development we need an even higher number of refrigerated vans, trucks and trailers that further share in an increase of greenhouse gas emissions. The German Development Agency GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit) has estimated in a report that, in the “business as usual” scenario, emissions will increase from almost 35 megatons of CO2 equivalent in 2020 to more than 40 Mt CO2eq from 2030 to 2035, before falling to slightly more than 30 MtCO2eq in 2050. The decrease is a direct result of Kigali amendment to the Montreal Protocol and of a growing electrification rate of vehicles based on the existing legislation.

Regulatory pressures and net zero target by 2050

Transports are already today responsible for a good share of climate-altering gas emissions all over the world. Just in the EU, 25% of greenhouse-effect emissions are ascribable to them.

Decreasing the use of fossil fuels in transports is essential so that the UE achieves the climatic neutrality by 2050. To hit this target, it is necessary that in the EU there are sufficient recharging and refuelling points with alternative fuels for vehicles, aircrafts and ships that use them. Hence the Alternative Fuels Infrastructure Regulation (AFIR), which is part of the “Fit for 55%” package, has been conceived and launched. It establishes some concrete goals for the development of such infrastructure in the EU in the course of next years.

Furthermore, in Europe, starting from 2035, according to the legislation definitively approved by the European Parliament, the new light commercial vehicles will be concerned by the obligation of not producing any CO2 emission. For medium– and heavy-duty trucks, the aim is achieving a progressive reduction in emissions of up to 90% by 2040.