Potential Models For Stand-Alone And Multi-Fuel Gaseous Hydrogen Refuelling Stations- Assessment Of Associated Risk

Air pollution and traffic congestion are two of the major issues affecting public authorities, policy makers and citizens not only in Italy and European Union but worldwide; this is nowadays witnessed by always more frequent limitations to the traffic in most of Italian cities, for instance. Hydrogen use in automotive appears to offer a viable solution in medium-long term; this new perspective involves the need to carry out adequate infrastructures for distribution and refuelling, and consequently the need to improve knowledge on hydrogen technologies from a safety point of view. In the present work possible different configurations for gaseous hydrogen refuelling station has been compared: “stand-alone” and “multi-fuel”. These two alternative scenarios has been taken into consideration, each of one with specific hypotheses: “stand-alone” configuration, based on the hypothesis of a potential model consisting of a hydrogen refuelling station composed by on-site hydrogen production via electrolysis, a trailer of compressed gas for back-up, compressor unit, intermediate storage unit and dispenser. In this model it is assumed that no other refuelling equipment and/or dispenser of traditional fuel is present in the same site. “multi-fuel” configuration, where it is assumed that the same components for hydrogen refuelling station are placed in the same site beside one or more refuelling equipment and/or dispenser of traditional fuel. Comparisons have been carried out from the point of view of specific risk assessment, which have been conducted on both the two alternative scenarios.