Cleantech REPS gets $23.6M to turn road traffic into clean electricity at scale

REPS patented technology converts vehicle traffic into electrical energy. In 6 months since first it has generated over 6,700 kWh of electricity from real traffic conditions.

Tyrol, Austria – May 22: Every day, enormous amounts of energy are lost through motion, pressure, and vibration. On roads, that loss is constant, predictable, and concentrated in the same places over and over again: entrances, exits, curves, speed-limited zones, loading areas, and any point where heavy vehicles naturally slow down. REPS was built to recover that wasted mechanical energy and convert it into clean electricity at scale, using infrastructure that already exists.

Today, REPS announced a $23.6M equity financing round to scale its Road Energy Production System, a patented “road power plant” that converts vehicle traffic into electrical energy.

What REPS is building 

REPS stands for Road Energy Production System. Its core product is a patented road power plant that installs directly into existing road infrastructure and harvests energy from trucks and cars driving over it, without disrupting traffic flow or logistics operations.

The technology is particularly effective where vehicles naturally slow down or brake, or where slopes create additional force. REPS is initially targeting ports, logistics hubs, cities, industrial sites, and other high-traffic infrastructure operators that want to reduce energy costs while improving sustainability.

“Roads are everywhere. Traffic is everywhere. What was previously wasted energy can now be transformed into clean electricity through REPS,” said Alfons Huber, Founder and CEO of REPS. 

REPS says its converter delivers 254x higher efficiency than the next-best alternative currently on the market, and unlike weather-dependent renewables, the system operates independently of time of day and weather conditions.

Why this matters 

Most renewable energy has focused on generating new power through solar and wind. REPS takes a different approach by recovering energy that’s already being wasted. The company’s first application is roads, where the energy lost through traffic alone could theoretically cover around 5% of global electricity demand.

The broader opportunity sits inside a category called energy harvesting, converting lost mechanical impulses into usable electricity. REPS believes the reason energy harvesting hasn’t become a major force in the energy transition is straightforward: existing mechanical converters have historically failed on efficiency and durability, which makes the economics fall apart. REPS had to reinvent the energy converter itself to unlock a system that can operate under heavy traffic conditions for more than 20 years and amortize within years.

Proof in the field

The first commercial REPS system has been operating at the Port of Hamburg since November 2025. Since then, more than 115,000 trucks have crossed the system, generating over 6,700 kWh of electricity from real traffic conditions.

The Hamburg deployment has translated into strong international demand. Following the launch, the company is engaged with over 90 parties from the port industry alone, spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and North America, and it says interest has now expanded beyond ports to logistics hubs and cities.

REPS also shared internal projections for what scale could look like. A rollout of around 230 systems across the Port of Hamburg’s public roads, excluding terminals, could generate approximately 10 GWh of electricity per year, enough to power around 2,800 households, and offset roughly 9.81% of the CO₂ emissions caused by port traffic. The return on investment in that scenario would be below four years.

On a city scale, the company estimates that deploying around 64,000 systems in a city the size of Dubai could recover approximately 3.2 TWh of electricity annually, equivalent to about 10.8% of the city’s total energy consumption today. 

Justin Karnbach, CEO of Hamburger Container Service GmbH, said ” 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. Without any interference with traffic and without additional space.”

Jens Maier, CEO HPA and President of the International Association of Ports and Harbors, added: “We can’t wait to see REPS in action – not just in the Port of Hamburg, but throughout the city and far beyond, all over the world. The Port of Hamburg aims to achieve climate neutrality by 2040. HPA actively supports this ambition by implementing innovative technologies. REPS is a future-orientated technology that generates electricity from previously unused energy sources, making a significant contribution toward achieving climate neutrality. With its high volume of truck movements and its role as a central logistics hub, the Port of Hamburg offers ideal conditions to test technologies like REPS under real-world conditions.”

The origin story

REPS was founded after Alfons Huber dropped out of his physics degree and spent 6.5 years developing the technology while defending his inventor rights against two universities. That work ultimately led to what REPS describes as the world’s first operational road power plant, now running at the Port of Hamburg.

“We spent six years developing the technology. Now the scaling phase begins. The strong demand from ports and logistics operators worldwide confirms the need for our solution, and with this financing round we can now scale at the speed required by the energy transition,” added Alfons Huber.

What’s next

Longer term, REPS sees roads as the first proof point for a broader energy-harvesting platform. The ambition is to turn high-traffic infrastructure into decentralized power assets, capturing energy that’s already being wasted and making it economically meaningful at scale wherever high masses move at high frequency.

Elisabeth Zehetner, State Secretary for Energy, Startups and Tourism, said “Start-ups are no longer a side topic, they are the innovation lab of our economy. This is where technologies like REPS from Austria are created. REPS is innovation made in Austria and showcases what our founders are capable of: they don’t just make small adjustments; they transform entire systems. A road becomes a power plant, and existing infrastructure becomes a building block for a sustainable future. Our role in politics is clear: we must ensure that start-ups find the right framework conditions in Austria. With the Start-up Umbrella Fund, we aim to make sure that innovation is financed, developed, and scaled here in Austria and Europe instead of eventually returning to us as an import from the U.S. or Asia”