In the 1945 the Danish shipyard Helsingoer Vaerft started the development of turbochargers, and in 1954 installed their product in the freight ship Abelone. The new developments were made under the name HV-TURBO (the HV stands for Helsingoer Vaerft), and the new company became very successful.

The innovative centrifugal compressors that were produced under the HV-TURBO brand allowed the company to expand worldwide and to establish itself as a major power in the turbo compressor field. The success of HV-TURBO attracted interest from other businesses in the market and in 2000 they were purchased by the German company Kühnle Kopp & Kausch. Subsequently KK&K were acquired by Siemens and the name HV-TURBO disappeared from the market. In 2012 the manufacture of, what had previously been called, HV-TURBO products was moved to the Frankenthal site in Germany.

In 2017, Howden purchased Siemens Turbomachinery Equipment GmbH (STE), which included the Frankenthal, Helsingoer and Mornago (Italy) sites. The EGR and KA products will once again be branded as HV-TURBO, recognising the history and new future of these important compressors.