If you need a little excitement and intrigue in your life, pay close attention to the California refrigerated transport market next year. Some refrigerated straight-truck fleets operating in California must convert at least 15% of their trucks to electric transport refrigeration units by the end of next year.

Some may not be able to meet the deadline.

The California Air Resources Board has changed the rules for mobile transport refrigeration units, commonly known as TRUs or reefers, that are mounted on straight truck chassis. CARB said it developed this regulation to address what it calls toxic and harmful emissions from diesel-powered TRUs. These include diesel particulate matter (diesel PM), fine particulate matter (PM2.5), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and greenhouse gases (GHG).   

The rules apply to all diesel TRUs on straight truck or van chassis operating in the state, even if they are domiciled elsewhere. 

The most significant part of the rule requires operators of vans and straight trucks to turn over at least 15% of their fleet to zero-emissions refrigeration systems each year for the next seven years until they reach 100% zero emissions by 2029. The deadline for the first 15% transition is Dec. 31, 2023. Fleets that don't convert face sanctions, which can include grounding the entire fleet.  

With that deadline just over a year away, there seems to have been remarkably little discussion in the industry about it, perhaps being overshadowed by the Advanced Clean Fleets proposal. Some fleets may not be aware of the new rules. And no doubt some hope or believe that CARB will roll back the requirement, but that's unlikely. (Which brings to mind the disappointment of the many owner-operators and small fleets who believed the electronic logging device rule would be withdrawn by the incoming Trump administration in 2017.)

There is the possibility of up to a six-month extension for individual fleets due to private financing, equipment manufacture delays, or installer delays.

In addition to the zero-emissions TRU replacement rule, there also are two requirements that go into effect at the end of 2022: 

1. Lower PM emissions for railcar TRUs, TRU generator set engines, and domestic shipping container TRUs. 

2. The use of a new refrigerant with a global warming potential lower than 2200. The major transport refrigeration unit suppliers have made standard R452A, which has been available as an option for several years.  

Both Carrier Transicold and Thermo King say end users will notice little operational difference with this new refrigerant compound, and both say they are already in compliance with this portion of the rule. 

Sales of ICE Reefers Frozen 

One of the consequences of this rule will be to freeze sales of traditional truck-mounted reefer units in California, since the TRU rule prohibits the sale of diesel-powered refrigeration units for medium-duty trucks in California by the end of 2023.  

Fleets making purchases before then should evaluate whether it makes sense to buy a new diesel reefer unit, says Preeti Subramanian, senior product manager, truck products, at Thermo King. In most cases, it would make more sense to go ahead and buy a zero-emissions unit.

On top of that, as of Jan. 1, 2024, TRU manufacturers can no longer pull any power whatsoever off of an internal combustion diesel engine in California. That means an end to electric TRUs driven from the truck's alternator/battery system.

While the TRU must be electric, trucks can still use internal combustion engines. (There’s another rule in the works that will see zero-emission  trucks phased in at a rate of 10% per year over a prescribed period of time.) Since there are very few full battery-electric trucks available yet, there will be cases where customers will need to put an electric reefer unit on an internal combustion truck. That means the refrigeration units will need their own battery packs.  

“It would be far easier and more straightforward if the electric reefer unit always married up to an electric truck and shared the same high-voltage battery,” says Bill Maddox, Carrier Transicold senior product manager for truck and trailer. “However, our solution needs the flexibility to do that and run off its own power supply for internal-combustion applications.” 

Is the Market Ready for 2023? 

“I think there is some level of concern from customers about the transition," says Subramanian, based on what she's hearing from customer conversations with dealers.

Converting to electric TRUs is going to require significant adjustments in how fleets operate, starting with how to power an all-electric reefer unit on an ICE chassis. Obviously, it will need a battery pack of its own. It will also require charging infrastructure and power to run the unit in standby mode while it’s pre-cooling or after it’s loaded and staged for delivery.  

Some larger fleets are well into the process of installing that infrastructure. Others will be caught off-guard by the initial cost and also the wait time to have that power supply installed. 

Both Carrier Transicold’s Supra line and Thermo King’s e1000 line of electric reefers for Class 5-7 straight trucks require DC direct connections and can run off of standard industrial voltages such as 480-volt 3-phase. Subramanian says she has seen estimates of $15,000 to $20,000 for portable solutions. Installing a new 480 drop and installing a CCS (Combined Charging System) charging facility could run to the high hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Figuring out the mobile battery capacity is another hurdle. Maddox says a typical summer day with a lot of door openings will probably be in the 20-23 kilowatt-hour range in most instances, but it will vary by the length of the route and other variables. Telematics will help determine what’s needed, but there could be fleets with a handful of trucks on longer runs or with other extenuating circumstances that will require larger battery packs, adding weight and cost.  

That could hit smaller fleets particularly hard. The alternative would be a full-electric truck from which the reefer unit could draw its power, but then you’re talking several hundred thousand dollars for the truck, the unit and the charging infrastructure.  

It won’t be easy for some fleets, especially smaller operations, to get over the initial hump of converting all or some portion of their trucks to electric. There are subsidies and vouchers available to offset a significant portion of the cost, but the time to get infrastructure projects started is rapidly running out.   

Editors Note: This article was edited 11/14/2022 to clarify some language.

This article appears in the November/December issue of Heavy Duty Trucking.