Hydrogen Safety and Permitting Hydrogen Fueling Stations

Two key aspects of hydrogen safety are (1) incorporating data and analysis from research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) into the codes and standards development process; and (2) adopting and enforcing these codes and standards by state and local permitting officials. This paper describes work that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is sponsoring to address these aspects of hydrogen safety. For the first, DOE is working with the automobile and energy industries to identify and address high priority RD&D to establish a sound scientific basis for requirements that are incorporated in hydrogen codes and standards. The high priority RD&D needs are incorporated and tracked in an RD&D Roadmap adopted by the Codes and Standards Technical Team of the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. DOE and its national laboratories conduct critical RD&D and work with key standards and model code development organizations to help incorporate RD&D results into the codes and standards process. To address the second aspect, DOE has launched an initiative to facilitate the permitting process for hydrogen fueling stations (HFS). A key element of this initiative will be a Web-based information repository, a toolkit that includes information fact sheets, networking charts to encourage information exchange among code officials who have permitted or are in the process of permitting HFS, templates to show whether a proposed station footprint conforms to requirements in the jurisdiction, and a database of requirements incorporated in key codes and standards. The information repository will be augmented by workshops for code officials and station developers in jurisdictions that are likely to have HFS in the near future.