Inova formed, as L. von Roll Bamag AG, in 1933, as a spin-off of the company Gesellschaft der Ludwig von Roll'schen Eisenwerke, which dated from 1823, and specialised in waste treatment. By 1966 the company was operating in France, Germany, Japan and Sweden. In 1975 US operations began. The environmental arm of the company was called Von Roll Inova Group. In 2003 Austrian Energy & Environment Group (AE&E) bought Von Roll Inova on behalf of A-TEC Industries.[2]
In 2021 HZI acquired from Viessmann Group the german company Schmack Biogas Service, a supplier in the biogas industry, founded in 1995, which was renamed Hitachi Zosen Inova Schmack.
In march 2024, HZI acquired Schmack Biogas Srl, an Italian biomethane EPC company formerly part of the German Schmack Biogas holding, from PLC Spa.[10]
Projects
The company built an EfW plant in San Luis Obispo, California, in 2018, and has pioneered the production of synthetic carbon-neutral methane by electrolysis of water to form hydrogen then reacting it with carbon dioxide, a process it calls EtoGas.[11]
In 2019 the company was contracted to build what would be the largest EFW plant in England, at Rookery South, near Stewartby in Bedfordshire. The project was expected to be completed in 2022, and was the firm's eleventh EfW project in the UK.[14] Local residents mounted a nine-year protest against the plant, which was being built on an abandoned quarry.[15]
The Newhurst EfW plant, in Shepshed in the East Midlands just off the M1, was expected to open in 2023. Ingo Eifert was the project leader for HZI. It was to use similar technology to that at Millerhill.[16]
HZI was building Western Australia's first EfW plant near Perth; it was expected to come online in late 2022.[17]
