Publications

In an integrated energy system hydrogen can support the decarbonisation of industry transport power generation and buildings across Europe. The EU Hydrogen Strategy addresses how to transform this potential into reality through investments regulation market creation and research and innovation.

Hydrogen can power sectors that are not suitable for electrification and provide storage to balance variable renewable energy flows but this can only be achieved with coordinated action between the public and private sector at EU level. The priority is to develop renewable hydrogen produced using mainly wind and solar energy. However in the short and medium term other forms of low-carbon hydrogen are needed to rapidly reduce emissions and support the development of a viable market.

This gradual transition will require a phased approach:

• From 2020 to 2024 we will support the installation of at least 6 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolysers in the EU and the production of up to one million tonnes of renewable hydrogen.
• From 2025 to 2030 hydrogen needs to become an intrinsic part of our integrated energy system with at least 40 gigawatts of renewable hydrogen electrolysers and the production of up to ten million tonnes of renewable hydrogen in the EU.
• From 2030 to 2050 renewable hydrogen technologies should reach maturity and be deployed at large scale across all hard-to-decarbonise sectors.
• To help deliver on this Strategy the Commission is launched the European Clean Hydrogen Alliance with industry leaders civil society national and regional ministers and the European Investment Bank. The Alliance will build up an investment pipeline for scaled-up production and will support demand for clean hydrogen in the EU.

To target support at the cleanest available technologies the Commission will work to introduce common standards terminology and certification based on life-cycle carbon emissions anchored in existing climate and energy legislation and in line with the EU taxonomy for sustainable investments. The Commission will propose policy and regulatory measures to create investor certainty facilitate the uptake of hydrogen promote the necessary infrastructure and logistical networks adapt infrastructure planning tools and support investments in particular through the Next Generation EU recovery plan.

Although hydrogen has been used in industry for decades its use as a fuel for vehicles or stationary power generation in consumer environments is relatively new. As such hydrogen and fuel cell codes and standards are in various stages of development. Industry manufacturers the government and other safety experts are working with codes and standards development organizations to prepare review and promulgate technically-sound codes and standards for hydrogen and fuel cell technologies and systems.



Codes and standards are being adopted revised or developed for vehicles; fuel delivery and storage; fueling service and parking facilities; and vehicle fueling interfaces. Codes and standards are also being adopted revised or developed for stationary and portable fuel cells and interfaces as well as hydrogen generators.  A list of current of international codes and standards is available on the Fuel Cells Codes and Standards Resource.



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Various studies and market trends show that the number of hydrogen fuelling stations will increase to the thousands in the US by 2050. NFPA 2 Hydrogen Technologies Code (NFPA2) the nationally adopted primary code governing hydrogen safety is relatively new and hydrogen vehicle technology is a relatively new and rapidly developing technology. In order to effectively aid and accelerate the deployment of standardized retail hydrogen fuelling facilities the permitting of hydrogen fuelling stations employing outdoor bulk liquid storage in the state of California.

In an effort to better understand how the applicants consultants and more importantly the Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJ)s are interpreting and applying the NFPA 2 especially for complex applications the newest hydrogen stations with the largest amount of bulk hydrogen storage in urban environment settings were identified and the permit applications and permit approval outcomes of the said stations were analysed. Utilizing the pubic record request process LH2 station permit applications were reviewed along with the approval outcomes directly from the municipalities that issued the permits. AHJs with H2 station permitting experience were interviewed. Case studies of permit hydrogen fuelling station permit applications were then complied to document both the perspectives of the applicant and the AHJ and the often iterative and collaborative nature of permitting.

The current permitting time for Liquid Hydrogen (LH2) stations can range from 9 to 18 months in the California. Five out of the six LH2 stations applications required Alternative Means & Methods (AM&Ms) proposals and deviations from the prescriptive requirements of the Code were granted. Furthermore AHJs often requested additional documents and studies specific to application parameters in addition to NFPA 2 requirements.

Natural ventilation is an efficient and well-known way to mitigate a hydrogen build-up in the case of an accidental release in confined enclosures. However for some hydrogen energy applications natural ventilation is not possible or is not efficient enough to reach defined safety strategy. Thus mechanical or forced ventilation can be interesting means to avoid critical concentration of hydrogen considering degraded operation and associated potential hazardous events. To better understand the impact of mechanical ventilation on the hydrogen build-up and distribution a dedicated study was led. First accidental release scenarios were experimentally simulated with helium in a 1-m3 enclosure. Several configurations of release and ventilation modes were tested and are presented in this study. Secondly analytical and numerical – Computational Fluid Dynamics – calculation approaches were applied and adjusted to propose a simplified methodology taking into account mechanical ventilation for assessment of hydrogen accumulation and for design optimization of the applications.

Usage of hydrogen as fuel gives rise to possible accidental risks due to leakage and dispersion. A risk from hydrogen leak is the formation of a large volume of the hydrogen-air mixture which could be ignited and leading up to a severe explosion. Prevention and control of formation and ignition of combustible hydrogen cloud necessitate sufficient knowledge of mechanisms of the hydrogen leak dispersion ignition and over-pressures generated during combustion. This paper aims to investigate the momentum-controlled jet the buoyancy-controlled wave and the parameters influencing hydrogen concentration distribution in an elongated space. It demonstrates experimental results and analysis from helium and hydrogen dispersion in a channel. A set of experiments were carried out for the release of helium and hydrogen jets in a 3 m long channel to record their concentrations in the cloud by concentration sensors at different horizontal and vertical positions. Flow visualization technique was applied using shadowgraph to image the mixing process next to the release point and the helium- hydrogen-air cloud shape at the middle of the channel. Moreover results were used for comparison of helium and hydrogen concentration gradients. The results of the experiments show that swift mixing occurs at higher flow rates smaller nozzle sizes and downward release direction. Higher concentration recorded in the channel with negative inclination. Results also confirmed that hydrogen/helium behavior pattern in the channel accords with mutual intrusion theory about gravity currents.

Hydrogen is a valuable option of clean fuel to keep the global temperature rise below 2°C. However one of the main barriers in its transport and use is to ensure safety levels that are comparable with traditional fuels. In particular liquid hydrogen accidents may not be fully understood (yet) and excluded by relevant risk assessment. For instance as hydrogen is cryogenically liquefied to increase its energy density during transport Boiling Liquid Expanding Vapor Explosions (BLEVE) is a potential and critical event that is important addressing in the hazard identification phase. Two past BLEVE accidents involving liquid hydrogen support such thesis. For this reason results from consequence analysis of hydrogen BLEVE will not only improve the understanding of the related physical phenomenon but also influence future risk assessment studies. This study aims to show the extent of consequence analysis influence on overall quantitative risk assessment of hydrogen technologies and propose a systematic approach for integration of overall results. The Dynamic Procedure for Atypical Scenario Identification (DyPASI) is used for this purpose. The work specifically focuses on consequence models that are originally developed for other substances and adapted for liquid hydrogen. Particular attention is given to the parameters affecting the magnitude of the accident as currently investigated by a number of research projects on hydrogen safety worldwide. A representative example of consequence analysis for liquid hydrogen release is employed in this study. Critical conditions detected by the numerical simulation models are accurately identified and considered for subsequent update of the overall system risk assessment.

This paper deals with site selection problems for hydrogen production plants and aims to propose a structural procedure for determining the most feasible sites. The study area is Adrar province Algeria which has a promising wind potential. The methodology is mainly composed of two stages: the first stage is to evaluate and select the best locations for wind-powered hydrogen production using GIS and MCDM technique. the AHP is applied to weigh the criteria and compute a LSI to evaluate potential sites and the second stage is applying different filtration constraints to select the suitable petrol stations for such hydrogen refuelling station modification. The result map showed that the entire Adrar province is almost suitable for wind-powered hydrogen production with varying suitability index. The LSI model groups sites into three categories: High suitable areas Medium suitable areas and Low suitable. As a result 2.95 % (12808.97 km2) of the study area has high suitability 54.59 % (236320.16 km2) has medium suitability 1.12 %(4842.94 km2) has low suitability and 41.34 % (178950.35 km2) of the study area is not suitable for wind hydrogen production. By applying the constraints about 4 stations are suitable for wind-powered hydrogen refuelling system retrofitting in Adrar province.

Hydrogen has the potential to act as the energy carrier of the future. It will be then produced in large amounts and will certainly need to be transported for long distances. The safest way to transport hydrogen is through pipelines. Failure of pipelines carrying gaseous hydrogen can have several effects some of which can pose a significant threat of damage to people and buildings in the immediate proximity of the failure location. This paper presents a probabilistic risk assessment procedure for the estimation of damage to people and buildings endangered by high-pressure hydrogen pipeline explosions. The procedure provides evaluation of annual probability of damage to people and buildings under an extreme event as a combination of the conditional probability of damage triggered by an explosion and the probability of occurrence of the explosion as a consequence of the pipeline failure. Physical features such as the gas jet release process flammable cloud size blast generation and explosion effects on people and buildings are considered and evaluated through the SLAB integral model TNO model Probit equations and Pressure-Impulse diagrams. For people both direct and indirect effects of overpressure events are considered. For buildings a comparison of the damage to different types of buildings (i.e. reinforced concrete buildings and tuff stone masonry buildings) is made. The probabilistic procedure presented may be used for designing a new hydrogen pipeline network and will be an advantageous tool for safety management of hydrogen gas pipelines.

When charging most types of industrial lead-acid batteries hydrogen gas is emitted. A large number of batteries especially in relatively small areas/enclosures and in the absence of an adequate ventilation system may create an explosion hazard. This paper describes full scale tests in confined space which demonstrate conditions that can occur in a battery room in the event of a ventilation system breakdown. Over the course of the tests full scale hydrogen emission experiments were performed to study emission time and flammable cloud formation according to the assumed emission velocity. On this basis the characteristics of dispersion of hydrogen in the battery room were obtained. The CFD model Fire Dynamic Simulator (NIST) was used for confirmation that the lack of ventilation in a battery room can be the cause of an explosive atmosphere developing and leading to a potential huge explosive hazard. It was demonstrated that different ventilation systems provide battery rooms with varying efficiencies of hydrogen removal. The most effective type appeared to be natural ventilation which proved more effective than mechanical means.

A fuel cell—gas turbine hybrid propulsion concept is introduced and initially assessed. The concept uses the water mass flow produced by a hydrogen fuel cell in order to improve the efficiency and power output of the gas turbine engine through burner steam injection. Therefore the fuel cell product water is conditioned through a process of condensation pressurization and revaporization. The vaporization uses the waste heat of the gas turbine exhaust. The functional principles of the system concept are introduced and discussed and appropriate methodology for an initial concept evaluation is formulated. Essential technology fields are surveyed in brief. The impact of burner steam injection on gas turbine efficiency and sizing is parametrically modelled. Simplified parametric models of the fuel cell system and key components of the water treatment process are presented. Fuel cell stack efficiency and specific power levels are methodically derived from latest experimental studies at the laboratory scale. The overall concept is assessed for a liquid hydrogen fueled short-/medium range aircraft application. Block fuel savings of up to 7.1% are found for an optimum design case based on solid oxide fuel cell technology. The optimum design features a gas turbine water-to-air ratio of 6.1% in cruise and 62% reduced high-level NOx emissions.