Chilled OX: Solar powered refrigerated small commercial vehicle for UK and Emerging Markets

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**Our vision for this project is to develop a world-first demountable, solar-powered refrigeration unit** for the electric OX truck**.**This is a highly innovative on-vehicle technology project that will increase the uptake of zero-emission-vehicles (ZEV) in UK and emerging markets.End-users will benefit from annual lower energy costs of ~90% through a combination of free solar-energy and lower-cost grid power. The total-cost-of-ownership improvement is ~55% due to higher upfront costs.This project is a partnership between UK-based technology startups, GVT & Sunswap, and Seafast, an established refrigerated transport operator.GVT was founded by a UK charity to tackle transport shortages in emerging markets. GVT is developing the OX truck, the first electric vehicle for emerging markets deployed to the first market, Rwanda, via an innovative mobility-as-a-service strategy.Sunswap is a clean-tech company on a mission to decarbonise the global cold-chain with innovative, cost-competitive, and zero-emission transport refrigeration systems.**UK Technology**There are currently an estimated 160,000 \[Cenex\] small commercial refrigerated vehicles in the UK, which are diesel trucks powered with alternator-driven electrical refrigeration units. Total potential tailpipe CO2 savings from this project is 2.2 megatonnes(MT) p.a.; 0.6MT from refrigeration and 1.6MT from vehicle driving.On a warm day, the refrigeration-unit consumes 7-13kWh. If taken from the ZEV traction battery, this would reduce the vehicle range by up to 37% \[Mercedes eSprinter\]. This reduced/variable range is a major barrier to refrigerated logistics businesses adopting ZEV vehicles.There is significant demand for improved solutions due to the consumer demand for carbon-neutral food chains, CO2 emissions targets and the ICE vehicle ban.This project will demonstrate a self-contained solar-powered refrigeration unit with battery backup to enable UK refrigerated logistics to switch to ZEV without deteriorating vehicle range.**Rwanda Technology**Today Rwanda wastes 40% of food produced \[World Bank, Oct 2020\]; a lack of cold-chain is a major cause. There are only a handful of diesel-powered refrigerated trucks in the country and 3 cold stores. Creating a cold chain is a national government priority and essential for the roll-out of the COVID vaccine.By demonstrating a **world first** solar-powered, demountable refrigeration unit, this project will enable creating a full cold-chain even in off-grid areas, avoiding significant investment in cold stores, giving Seafast and GVT a competitive advantage.This project **exploits** **prior Innovate-UK projects** completed by Sunswap to develop an HGV solar-powered refrigeration unit and GVT to develop the electric OX truck and business model.