World leader of hydrogen production in meteorology

Overview

For more than 90 years SAGIM is specialized in the manufacturing of hydrogen generators for use in meteorology.
Today, more than 90 meteorological organizations worldwide trust in us.

For more than 90 years, SAGIM is specialized in the supplying of units for hydrogen production via electrolytic and chemical processes to National and International Meteorological services.

Thanks to its experience, SAGIM has become the world leader in the production of hydrogen via chemical process.

In addition to this manufacturing activity, SAGIM designs technical assemblies meeting the specific needs of its clients in areas such as electricity power generating plants and semiconductors, as well as in the field of the new energies intended for the fuel cell.

SAGIM also provides training services tailored to the needs of its clients and of a high technical level, whether in the fields of quality, safety or international standards.

All our services, beginning with the order and following through to the commissioning of our installations at customers’ as well as the development stage, production, installation and after-sales customer services are ISO 9001 Ed: 2015 and ISO 14001 Ed: 2015 quality certified.

This new standard, obtained in June 2020, certifies SAGIM’s environmental compliance for its activities and processes.

Taken together, all of these technical and human resources clearly differentiate SAGIM from its competitors.

Quality approach

Our main policy is to listen our Customers!

SAGIM – ISO 9001 & 14001 certified

Download ISO 9001 certificate

Download ISO 14001 certificate

Our purpose

Specialized since more than 90 years in the hydrogen field, our vocation remains the same:
To meet our customers’ specific requirements and their implicit and explicit needs by providing personalized services of high quality and at a controlled cost.

Our commitment

Our quality reflex is accompanied by a systematic desire to move forward. It is innovation that will boost our vocation to preserve our environment and will be the driving force behind our ambition to implement the ISO 14001 standard.

Our Quality Environment policy must be understood, shared and accepted by all. In this way, we will be able to identify and permanently eliminate our dysfunctions and allow our Customers to benefit from the progress made as part of our continuous improvement process. Our Quality and Environment objectives are determined and analyzed during our annual activity reviews.

The application of ISO 9001 and 14001 standards in their most recent versions has been chosen to drive our policy. They are a tool for all our activities to measure the progress made and the deviations to be avoided.

We are committed to providing our customers with materials and equipment manufactured in compliance with the regulatory and legal requirements of the Standards in force, in particular the international standard ISO 22734-1 for the manufacture of hydrogen generators for industrial use, the European directive 2014/68/EU for the construction and use of pressure equipment and the European ATEX directive for safety compliance.

Partnerships are established with various service providers in order to continuously improve our equipment and their operating comfort, with the major challenge of preserving the environment by eliminating polluting organs.

The strategic orientations to achieve this mission are based on:

  • Our skill
    Our availability, our state of mind, our versatility and the experience of our employees developed over 90 years have enabled us to acquire a strong competence and recognized know-how.
  • Our trust
    Our knowledge of our businesses enables us to evaluate essential equipment and select our suppliers and subcontractors accordingly, in a spirit of partnership, trust and respect of environment.
  • Our resources
    The technical means used make it possible to adapt to the variability of the sites encountered in order to guarantee the satisfaction of our Customers.
  • Our ambitions
    • To guarantee the quality of our remote and on-site technical support to our Customers on an ongoing basis
    • Expand our activity in markets other than meteorology
    • Control the environmental impacts of the site (including regulatory impacts)
    • Improve our recycling practices and environmental awareness
    • Develop products with low environmental impacts and low risk for users

The daily application and improvement of our approach will guarantee the satisfaction and trust of our Customers for the development and sustainability of the company over time.

Send us a complaint

Download the Complaint form

In the event of a complaint or complaint to SAGIM, this form is available to help us with any problems. Whatever the nature of this complaint, you will receive a response within 48 hours to best respond to your complaint.

History

1922 - Creation of GIP
1960 - First electrolyzer provided
1991 - ISO 9001 Certification
1994 - GIP becomes SAGIM
1996 - Partnership with NEL HYDROGEN
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The company Gaz Industriels de Province (GIP) was founded in 1922 by Oxylhite, a company created in the early twentieth century, specialising in the production and sale of oxygen and of the equipment used to produce it. It had taken over the French business of the Brin Brothers, which had been founded in Paris by Brin’s Oxygen Company of London, a global firm better known today as the British Oxygen Company (BOC).

During the years 1910 to 1914, Oxylhite developed the hydrolith, hydrogenite and silicol processes for the production of hydrogen, and also began production of electrolytic hydrogen.

It quickly gained such experience in this field that in 1915 the Ministry of War gave it the task of building an electrolysis station using an instantaneous power of 4,000 kW. In its day, this was the largest facility of its kind in Europe.

The first unit producing hydrogen via electrolysis under the GIP name was delivered in 1922 to a foreign government.This unit was built from a series of “open” monopolar tanks.

In 1947, as a result of the increasing demand for hydrogen in order to meet the needs of its clients, GIP began the production of dipole “filter press” electrolyzers. “The advantage of this new technology was that it tripled production capacity with respect to the monopolar method, while taking up the same amount of physical space.”

During the 1960’s the Oxygène Liquide industrial gas group, (which was specialised in the production of oxygen and acetylene) had no experience in hydrogen production. It therefore decided to acquire Gaz Industriels de Province in order to widen its field of operations.

Fully aware of the potential market for hydrogen in the meteorology field, Oxygène Liquide decided to set up a division within its group. This was to be the “GIP” division.

In 1988, the French gas production group Air Liquide became very interested in the possibility of acquiring Oxygène Liquide, but France’s strict anti-trust laws made it possible for the American Air Products group to gain a presence in Europe through its acquisition of Oxygène Liquide and all of its divisions.

Keen to focus exclusively on its core business (the packaging of industrial gases), Air Products soon decided to spin off its subsidiary divisions, followed in 1994 by the GIP division.

As a result, GIP became a private independent company, and was renamed SAGIM (Société d’Application des Gaz pour l’Industrie et la Météorologie).

Between 1994 and 1996, SAGIM diversified into various fields such as supplying equipment for the production of nitrogen, oxygen and air for special applications, but also the assembly of gas compression and purification units.

In 1996, SAGIM joined forces with the Norwegian company Norsk Hydro Electrolysers AS, a company specialised in the production of high-capacity electrolytic hydrogen generators for more than half a century. Thanks to this alliance, SAGIM is today able to offer its clients a complete range of hydrogen generators.

During the year 2001, fully aware of the advances being made with technologies such as the fuel cell — long viewed as an ideal energy source for the future — SAGIM decided to enter this market sector. It began by setting up a partnership with the American company Hydrogen Burner Technology, which manufactured equipment used to produce hydrogen from natural gas (the so-called reforming process).

In 2002, in association with NEL-Hydrogen (formerly Norsk Hydro Electrolyzers AS), SAGIM decided to get into this new market niche by creating innovative concepts for electrolytic hydrogen generators, as well as by combining these systems with renewable energy sources such as solar energy or wind power.

SAGIM works for France in 2015 and 2016, by installing two BPMP 500-7 generators (one in Trappes and the other in Brest).

Currently, SAGIM’s Chairman and CEO Bernard Cutillas is the company’s majority shareholder.