(Grupo Industrial Calvera/NGV Journal) The equipment for the road transport of gases at high pressure developed by Grupo Industrial Calvera, company based in Zaragoza (Spain), are a key element for the European BIG HIT (Building innovative green hydrogen systems in an isolated territory: a pilot for Europe) project, whose launch took place on the Scottish Orkney Islands with the assistance of institutional and business leaders from several countries.
Calvera’s five trailers are one of the basic pillars of this 60-month initiative that involves 12 partners from 6 countries with a budget of 10.9 million euros of which the European Commission awards 5 million through the Fuel Cells Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU). The goal is to develop an integral infrastructure of production, storage, transport, distribution and use of hydrogen for energy supply purposes from the available local renewable sources, wind and tidal force.
The dispersion of the population of the Orkney Islands (20 islands with a community of 21,000 people) and the need to take better advantage of the renewable electricity production they already have (56 megawatts of installed power in wind turbines and tidal energy systems) generate 46 gigawatts per year of which 30% is not used due to overloads in electricity networks) offered the ideal conditions to carry out a project so, in addition to the global demo capacity, will solve the energy needs of the local population.
Complementing the Surf ‘n’ Turf ‘project, in which Calvera also participated, BIG HIT wants to use the surplus of renewable electricity generated in the islands of Eday and Shapinsay that cannot be consumed at the moment (about 2.7 gigawatt hours per year) to produce, through two proton exchange membrane electrolyzers (PEM) of 1 and 0.5 megawatts, 50 tons of hydrogen per year by electrolysis of water, which is stored at high pressure in the 5 Calvera’s specially designed trailers (each with a capacity to load a quarter of a ton of hydrogen) that are transported by sea to the island of Kirkwall.
There, hydrogen supplies a 75-kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell that provides heat and electricity to several port buildings and three ferries when they are docked, while powering 5 Orkney Islands Council’s fuel cell and zero-emission Renault Symbio Kangoo vehicles at a refueling station. For more information, visit www.calvera.es/en. READ MORE