Smartcool Announces 18% Savings by New Energy Efficiency Solution for Refrigerated Transportation Market

VANCOUVER, March 19, 2014 /PRNewswire/ - Smartcool Systems Inc. (TSX-V: SSC) is pleased to announce initial results of 18% energy savings from an evaluation of Smartcool's energy efficiency technology on two sea-going refrigerated containers.

"This is an exciting new market that we are entering," says George Burnes, President and CEO of Smartcool.  "Not only does it offer a huge amount of potential on its own, but it is also highly complementary to our established customer base of food retailers.   Our major supermarket customers depend on refrigerated transportation as an integral part of their business.  Offering a new solution to address the costly energy consumption in this sector will open the doors to new customers and provide a lucrative value-added offering to our existing customers."

Smartcool has established a well-respected energy efficiency solutions business for refrigeration and air conditioning using its own software products. Initial testing of Smartcool's software on this new application has been very successful, demonstrating 18% energy savings on the compressor in a Carrier refrigeration unit.  This will translate to a return on investment well under 12 months for customers, leading to rapid sales penetration for Smartcool.

The refrigerated transportation market includes over-the-road trailers, box trucks, sea-going containers and rail containers.  Globally, there are over 5.5 million refrigerated trucks and trailers, and an additional 2 million refrigerated sea-going containers.

Diesel-fueled generators are the primary source of electricity for transportation refrigeration systems. These generate electricity at a cost of up to $0.80/kwh depending on the prevailing cost of diesel. In the case of refrigerated trucks and trailers, the refrigeration unit consumes approximately 1 gallon of diesel fuel per running hour. With diesel costs averaging $4/gallon in North America and over $7 in Europe, there is considerable demand for energy saving solutions like Smartcool's technology that can offer painless reduction of these costs.

Chris Lefaivre, VP of Operations, says, "This market has vast untapped potential.  Options for refrigerated transportation companies to reduce their operating costs are few and far between.  By offering our solution to make their refrigeration systems more energy efficient, we will be assisting cold freight transportation companies with their bottom line and their green initiatives. It is a multi-million dollar opportunity for Smartcool and we are thrilled to be seeing such strong test results right at the start."

Currently, the ECO3 hardware platform is being used to deliver Smartcool's proprietary software algorithms to this new application.  Further testing on over-the-road refrigerated trailers will be completed in the second quarter, prior to a number of pilot installations.  This may lead to the development of a new hardware platform powered by Smartcool's software, designed specifically for the refrigerated transportation sector.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About Smartcool
Smartcool Systems Inc. (TSX-V: SSC) provides cutting edge energy efficient and energy cost reduction solutions for businesses around the world.  The ECO3 and ESM are Smartcool's unique retrofit technologies that reduce the energy consumption of compressors in air conditioning, refrigeration and heat pump systems by 15% to 20%, giving customers a return on investment in as little as 12 months.

SOURCE SmartCool Systems Inc.