Hydrogen Central

Calvera Speeds Up The Network Of Hydrogen Service Stations

hydrogen service stations calvera

Calvera speeds up the network of hydrogen service stations.

The decarbonisation of industry, households and transport is one of the main points on the global roadmap. And it is that climate change is pressing. In this scenario, hydrogen is presented as one of the main solutions to increase the consumption of renewable energy. 

The installation of hydrogen generators -service stations for this element- in road transport is part of this change. In fact, in 2030 , supplying road vehicles with hydrogen at these pumps can be done every 250 kilometers , through the 150 hydrogen plants that the Government estimates will be installed.

This revolution is already underway, although the growth ramp is expected to accelerate towards 2028. And the Zaragoza company Calvera is one of the key pieces of this board at a European level and one of the few companies with a presence in all phases of the logistics chain and distribution of hydrogen. The firm, specialized in the storage and transport of high-pressure compressed gases, had a turnover of close to 20 million euros last year and plans to grow 75% in 2023. 

The family group, which is now run by the third generation, began its steps in 1954 at the hands of Julio Calvera linked to the steel and metal industry in Zaragoza. “In its beginnings, it was a highly responsible metallurgical welding company. It was not until 1980 that hydrogen became part of the second generation of the company,” highlights the grandson and commercial director, Rafael Calvera. 

The company, which manufactures trailers, trucks and tube trailers (semi-trailers) to transport this gas and the hydrogen plants themselves, gradually established relationships with multinational industrial gas companies, first at a national level, then at a European and then international level.

José Luis Fernández Bris, CEO, said:

We did not know everything that was to come. 

“It was the 80s when we started, and it was not until 2003 that the boom in renewables began and hydrogen began to emerge.”

It was in 2005 when the first tests for hydrogen generators began through research, pilots and documentary images. And they turned out for cars, but also for tube trailers, an area in which the company has “key competitiveness”. 

Since then, projects have not stopped coming. The last one consists of the delivery of two “of the largest hydrogen plants in Europe in Poland”, says the CEO. Each one is capable of dispensing 1.6 tons of hydrogen per day , which could supply this gas to 60 buses and 40 cars per day. 

“For us it is a pride to be at the forefront of technology in a thriving sector and that we see that it is clearly going to decarbonize our society in an important way,” Fernández also points out. Another of the most recent projects consists of the design and manufacture of the trailer for transporting hydrogen under pressure with the largest capacity in the world.

The first thing for the company is security. That is why Calvera has increased its investment and its resources to ensure it through the ISO 45001 certification. Reducing its own carbon footprint is something that is also on its agenda, identifying green projects. 

Also with the monitoring of data with equipment that includes telemetry and sensorization , increasingly present. In this way, signals can be given to a digital platform that allows monitoring from the initial compression of hydrogen to the filling center.

From 9,000 to 24,000 meters

The Government, through European funds and through the Ministry for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge-IDAE, has granted Calvera a grant with which the company will triple its space. Its production warehouses will go from 9,000 square meters to 24,000 , and its staff, from 100 to 150 workers with a horizon of 2024.

The company also has forecasts of international growth -both in the rest of Europe and in the United Kingdom and the USA- and the formation of a company only for R&D. At the project level, he is studying the creation of “infinite hydrogen generators”, whose dispensing is continuous regardless of the type of vehicle.

READ the latest news shaping the hydrogen market at Hydrogen Central

Calvera speeds up the network of hydrogen service stations, June 24, 2023

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