Remember Rafael Calvera while in the family business they were “the great preachers of the hydrogen desert.” The journey was as long as it was challenging, but it helped them learn almost everything about that unstable and complex molecule that everyone now dreams of transporting. Now in the Épila factory (Zaragoza) after forty years of absorbing knowledge they have the formula under their arm, Thanks to the push for green hydrogen, the wasteland has become a valley of profits, leading them to almost quadruple their turnover It will reach 28 million in 2023, from 8 million in 2019This number is expected to exceed 40 in 2024.
All of these will be consolidated in new facilities built on a 200 m2 land. 30,000 square meters next to its headquarters located in the El Sabinar industrial area in Épila. There they will invest $30 million to build a research and production center that will house more than 250 workers in 2026, when they hope to begin mass production of the crate. Where green hydrogen is moving is called the industrial gold of the future.
What they’re building at Calvera are infrastructures to transport hydrogen, which is the very chimera that opposes the push for this fuel, which takes advantage of the glut of renewable energies due to its volatility and difficulty in compressing the gas. It is fuel efficient. They think about everything in their field of work centre From loading hydrogen onto trucks to distribution, By storage and transportation. They repeat again and again that the main thing for the company is security, which is indispensable for customers and what allows this. Calvera Hydrogen will gain the trust of the industry.
They emphasize the importance of being engineers and manufacturers of hydrogen plants.Hydrogen gas stations and their star products, of which they launched a dozen or so last year. Their facility in Épila produced Europe’s largest service station to date, providing 1,600 kilos of fuel per day to refuel 70 buses and 20 light vehicles in just five minutes per unit to reach a range in excess of 700 kilometres.
Another business line is road transportation via tube trailers, semi-trailers filled with cylinders. Ultra resistant to the pressure they also produce in Calvera. Although the capacity of the truck varies according to needs, 306 kilos of “savagery” at 200 bar pressure and 1,354 kilos of “savagery” at 500 bar pressure, In the words of Rafael Calvera. To give you context, a tire supports pressures between 2.3 and 2.8 bar.
Aragonese company from start to finish in 1954 Julio Calvera It is an activity that requires maximum security, such as a high-pressure welding factory. It was only in the 1980s that the first generation of entrepreneurs decided to invest in hydrogen. However, it was not until 2003, coinciding with the birth of the Aragon Hydrogen Foundation, of which they were trustees and founders, that the green version of this gas began to be drawn as the main future of the company.
Aragonese seal of the Canfranc hydrogen train
Calvera has maintained a beneficial growth trend, but account growth has continued exponentially since 2019. While the company has a turnover of around 8-9 million by 2021, this number plans to double to 18 million in 2022 and 28 million in 2023. “We increased from 40 employees to 140 employees and created the foundations of a company structure with a multinational philosophy, “It has legal, security, human resources, purchasing department and a very strong engineering field.” Rafael Calvera explains. In fact, they currently have over 40 expert engineers researching green hydrogen and biomethane.
And so the Calvera brand expanded worldwide, Because although Spain has the largest hydrogen facility in the country, they export 70% of their production (Supplying 40 buses per day in Barcelona) while delivering projects to Repsol, Iberdrola and Enagás. Theirs is also the definitive hydrogen station, which will supply this fuel to the CAF train arriving at Canfranc station and from which they can refuel “all trains”.
To these projects, in addition to others in Madrid for light vehicles and one recently delivered in Mallorca included the group’s ““It is doing very well industrially and is taking its hydrogen policies seriously.” But Aragon is the heart of this family business, which 40 years ago saw hydrogen as a diamond in the rough. And now they are reaping what they sowed.