Market Opportunity
Refrigerated Transport
Opportunity: CO2 savings of more than 80% of refrigeration and payback within a year.
Cooling currently accounts for up to 20% of a refrigerated vehicle's fuel consumption The refrigerated transport market is a rapidly growing market, expected to be worth £6bn by 2015. Emerging markets are facing significant cold chain issues driven by urbanisation, growing consumerism and rural development.
- In Africa, 30-50% of food perishes before reaching the consumer due to lack of cooling after harvest, cold storage and refrigerated transport.
- In China, the frozen food market is booming (growth of 30% in the next 5 years), making refrigerated transport all the more important and raises demand for low cost and low emission solutions.
- An estimated 40pc of Indian food produce rots before it reaches the market, driving up prices for consumer and driving down incomes for farmers. This is due to poor cold chain storage and modern transport logistics.
Waste Heat Recovery (WHR)
Opportunity: CO2 and fuel consumption reduction of ~ 25% and a 2-3 year payback.
Emissions legislation & future fuel consumption legislation will increasingly impact on Mid Duty/Heavy Duty technology development, with a focus on improving powertrain and vehicle efficiency.
The global DE opportunity in the Urban Heavy Duty Vehicle (HDV) market, that includes buses, coaches, delivery and garbage trucks, could reach 844k units per annum by 2025 according to Ricardo Strategic Consulting.
Zero Emission Vehicles
Opportunity: As a prime-mover, the Dearman engine offers advantages of zero emissions, similar range to an EV, similar cost to an ICE, fast refuelling with a liquid (equal to petrol/diesel), and very favourable embedded carbon due to use of common materials in its construction.
This application is highly relevant for multi-billion $ global on-and off-highway applications, including industrial (e.g. fork-lift trucks), mining, inland waterways applications, the built environment, as well as opportunities in emerging markets around urban vehicles (tuktuks/quadricycles).
It also raises the possibility of zero-emission liquid air city cars at a fraction of current zero emission vehicle costs and with lower lifecycle vehicle emissions.
Market Studies
With Ricardo Strategic Consulting, and supported by Air Products, we have undertaken a detailed global market assessment of opportunities in waste heat recovery and refrigeration to gain a deeper understanding of these markets and the opportunities for commercialisation of the DEC solution and the potential value of these markets.
Questions included market sizes and growth; market drivers and legislation; market requirement; market entry points, and target partner and client organisations.
With E4Tech we have undertaken a detailed assessment of the technical and business development path DEC should follow, in order to maximise return in the short and long term, and minimise technical and market risk. Specifically this study is helping determine technical suitability for different applications and best approach to hardware development, by considering both markets and the technology.
Jointly funded by the TSB, E4tech and the Dearman Engine Company have undertaken a techno-economic report on ZEV. This includes market mapping (desk research and selected direct contact with potential users of the technology), to characterise zeroemission markets.
With E4tech we have developed techno-economic models for refrigeraiton and WHR and ZEV applications.