The Catalan alternative to diesel generators that "sells resilience" against blackouts

BarcelonaThe general blackout of April 2025, like all traumatic events for the population, changed many things. Spanish strategic infrastructures, from communication towers to power plants, and essential services such as hospitals, have strived to find alternatives to stay afloat when there is no electricity. Most of these hotspots have traditional diesel generators, which cover their short-term needs, but also place logistical limits on activity. Eliminating these obstacles is the raison d'être of Atom H2, one of the most acclaimed startups in the Catalan ecosystem, which closes the electrical wound with renewable generation and a patented hydrogen technology. "We want to be the new standard for generators," says Anna Martín, one of the project's co-founders, in conversation with ARA.

Atom H2 was born when its ideologues were still attending classes, in the industrial design degree at the Elisava school in Barcelona. At that time, as co-founder Marcel Rovira also explains, they wanted to address this need for strategic companies. "A diesel generator is like a car: you have to change the oil, put in gasoline, but here it's the workshop that has to go to the engine," he explains. In highly distributed networks, such as telecommunication towers, just reaching them to perform maintenance is a "logistical pain" for operators. It is through this gap that Atom's product enters: an eight-foot container that integrates solar panels, lithium batteries, and its hydrogen system, the company's innovative core.

The product is more than disruptive: the electricity generated by the solar panels is used to power the strategic device to which it is connected. The energy surplus first charges the lithium batteries and, once they are full, activates an electrolyzer that separates water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen, the central process of green hydrogen creation.

With its technology, this hydrogen is stored in solid state, more efficient than the traditional format, at high pressures or low temperatures. Because it requires much less space, the device "can be installed in places where traditional hydrogen could never reach," explains Rovira. Later, when necessary, it is converted back into electricity using a fuel cell, and it can power the device to which it is connected. According to the co-founder, "each of the technologies plays a role": the traditional panels and batteries are for immediate uses, while hydrogen is more useful for long-term storage. "It is a sustainable technology, but we sell resilience," he states.

Immediate recognition

According to Martín, the reception the initiative has had in the market has been most effusive. Still in its initial stages, the company has already conducted pilot tests with strategic companies at the level of Cellnex or Indra, with satisfactory results. The innovative ecosystem has also recognized them: in 2022, shortly after its birth, the startup won the imaginPlanet Challenge, which allowed it to incubate in Silicon Valley. Later, in 2024, Atom H2 won the national segment of the prestigious industrial design award James Dyson. This year it was awarded one of the EmprènXXI awards, presented by the "start-ups segment of CaixaBank, Day One. In addition, "Forbes" magazine included the founders in its list of the 100 most creative people in the business world, and they participated in NATO's DIANA acceleration program for technologies with potential dual use.

These distinctions have led them to receive various European, state, and Catalan grants, and they are immersed in an initial phase investment round of 2.5 million euros that will serve to expand the workforce and prepare for the definitive leap to the market. The investment world has shown, they celebrate, a significant appetite for Atom H2, at a time when, in Martín's words, "hardware is sexy again." Institutional funds and venture capital fear that AI will erode part of the business of digital companies, but no chatbot "can replace hardware." "Many investors explain that AI valuations are sky-high, and that makes them lack liquidity to enter. With companies like ours, the opposite is true," adds Rovira.

The co-founders, it must be said, are aware of the company's initial capabilities and have remained cautious about its short-term aspirations. "We have to try not to die of success," says Rovira jokingly: initially, Atom will prepare 10 installations to "ensure operation, support the sites, and demonstrate product reliability." Once up and running, however, they will accelerate strongly: in 2028, the company expects to mobilize a hundred units of its generator, and they aim to have 700 operational by 2030.

They will also seek the North American market from 2028, given the potential of their business: although they will initially focus only on strategic infrastructures, mainly telecommunications, Martí expects the technology to have a "wider scope". "By increasing the power, we could go to many environments: satellite base stations, hospitals, defense infrastructure," he lists. The manufacturing of the devices has been designed together with Idneo from Valles, which offers engineering and manufacturing services for companies with industrial needs. With their current capabilities, Rovira details, they can produce a hundred devices each year.