REPS Raises $23.6M to Turn Road Traffic Into Power for Ports

Austrian cleantech company REPS has raised $23.6 million in equity financing to expand its road-based energy harvesting technology. The company is developing a system that captures mechanical energy from vehicles and converts it into electricity, with a focus on infrastructure where heavy traffic is already concentrated.

The Road Energy Production System is installed into existing road surfaces and is designed to recover energy from vehicle movement, pressure and vibration. REPS is targeting use cases where vehicles naturally slow down, brake or pass repeatedly through controlled routes. That includes ports, logistics hubs, industrial sites, city roads, curves, loading zones, entrances and exits.

For infrastructure operators, the business case is tied to making existing assets work harder. Roads, port routes and freight corridors are already expensive to build and maintain. REPS is positioning its system as a way to add energy generation to those assets without requiring new land or major changes to traffic flows.

The technology is not being presented as a replacement for solar or wind. Instead, it sits in the distributed energy category, capturing energy that would otherwise be lost during vehicle movement. A key selling point is that the system can generate power regardless of weather conditions or time of day, which could make it useful for operators looking to diversify local energy sources.

Port of Hamburg Deployment Shows Early Commercial Potential

REPS’ first commercial installation has been operating at the Port of Hamburg since November 2025. According to the company, more than 115,000 trucks have crossed the system, generating over 6,700 kWh of electricity under real-world operating conditions.

The Port of Hamburg deployment gives REPS an early proof point in a setting where the use case is clear. Ports rely on predictable vehicle movement, heavy truck traffic and controlled infrastructure, making them a practical environment for testing road energy systems. The company says the project has already attracted interest from more than 90 parties in the port sector, with additional demand from logistics hubs and city infrastructure operators.

REPS estimates that a wider rollout across Hamburg’s public port roads could generate around 10 GWh of electricity per year. That would be enough to power roughly 2,800 households and could offset nearly 10% of CO₂ emissions associated with port traffic, based on the company’s calculations.

The next phase will be about proving the economics beyond a single deployment. For commercial buyers, key questions will include installation cost, permitting, traffic disruption, long-term maintenance and how easily the recovered power can be integrated into local energy systems.

REPS says its converter is designed for more than 20 years of heavy-duty operation and can pay back within a few years. Wider adoption will depend on whether that performance holds across different road conditions, traffic volumes and climate environments.

The new funding gives REPS room to move from early validation to broader commercial rollout. For ports, logistics operators and industrial sites, road-based energy harvesting could offer a new way to reduce energy costs and emissions without needing additional space. The model still needs to prove itself at scale, but it points to a shift in how high-traffic infrastructure could be used: not just as a transport surface, but as a local energy asset.