Austrian startup REPS raises $23.6m to turn road traffic into electricity

Tyrol-based REPS has connected its Road Energy Production System to the Port of Hamburg, aiming to harvest energy from friction and heat that would otherwise be wasted when trucks brake. The company raised $23.6m to scale the patented technology for ports, logistics hubs, and cities. Energy harvesting has historically underperformed due to inefficient converters and short lifespans, which prevented workable economics. REPS says it redesigned the mechanical converter over six years, claiming 254 times higher efficiency than the next-best system, though no independent benchmark exists. Since November 2025, a 12-metre unit at Hamburger Container Service has recorded 115,000 truck crossings and 6,700 kWh generated, based on company-reported data. The facility claims clean energy recovery without traffic interference or additional space.

"Tyrol-based REPS has plugged its first "road power plant" into the Port of Hamburg. The next test is whether the economics survive contact with anywhere else. Tyrol-based REPS has raised $23.6m to scale a technology with an unusually literal premise: install a slab into a road, let trucks drive over it, harvest the energy they would otherwise waste in friction and heat."

"The pitch sits inside a category called energy harvesting, which has spent two decades being interesting in theory and disappointing in practice. The converters were inefficient and the lifespans were short, so the economics never worked. Huber says REPS spent six years redesigning the mechanical converter itself, and that the result is 254 times more efficient than the next-best system on the market. That figure is the company's own, and there is no independent benchmark yet."

"Since November 2025, a 12-metre REPS unit has been operating at Hamburger Container Service in the Port of Hamburg, at a stretch of road where empty-container trucks brake to enter the depot. REPS says more than 115,000 trucks have crossed it since installation, generating over 6,700 kWh of electricity. Those numbers come from the company, not a third-party meter."

""The installation at our facility demonstrates the potential of REPS: where vehicles have to brake anyway, clean energy is recovered and can be used directly where we need it," said Justin Karnbach, chief executive of HCS, in a statement. "Without any interference with traffic and without additional space." That last clause is the commercial argument in one sentence. Solar needs land. Wind needs wind. A road already exists, the traffic already moves, and the decel"

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