The New England Produce Center in Chelsea, MA, outside of Boston, is installing 79 Carrier Transicold Vector 5100 all-electric trailer refrigeration units to replace diesel-powered units that previously ran 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

This project is supported in part through a $1.9 million grant to the Chelsea Collaborative from the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act’s (ARRA) National Clean Diesel Funding Assistance Program.

Use of the Vector 5100 units by the Center are expected to help eliminate the annual consumption of more than 480,000 gallons of diesel fuel, saving the produce market approximately $500,000 a year as the cost of operating trailer refrigeration units using the electric power grid, with its relatively stable pricing, is more economical than using diesel fuel.

The units are also expected to remove more than 300 tons of air pollutants annually, helping to improve the air in this densely populated suburb already crisscrossed with diesel corridors due to trucking, shipping and airport traffic.

Chelsea, located along the Mystic River across from Boston, has been identified as the third most environmentally overburdened city in Massachusetts, with some of the state’s highest reported incidences of respiratory ailments, cardiovascular disease, strokes and cancers related to diesel engine exhaust pollution.