Optimization of a Solar Hydrogen Storage System: Safety Considerations

Hydrogen has been extensively used in many industrial applications for more than 100 years, including production, storage, transport, delivery and final use. Nevertheless, the goal of the hydrogen energy system implies the use of hydrogen as an energy carrier in a more wide scale and for a public not familiarised with hydrogen technologies and properties.
The road to the hydrogen economy passes by the development of safe practices in the production, storage, distribution, and use of hydrogen. These issues are essential for hydrogen insurability. We have to bear in mind that a catastrophic failure in any hydrogen project could damage the insurance public perception of hydrogen technologies at this early step of development of hydrogen infrastructures.
Safety is a key issue for the development of hydrogen economy, and a great international effort is being done by different stakeholders for the development of suitable codes and standards concerning safety for hydrogen technologies [1, 2]. Additionally to codes and standards, different studies have been done regarding safety aspects of particular hydrogen energy projects during the last years [3, 4]. Most of such have been focused on hydrogen production and storage in large facilities, transport, delivery in hydrogen refuelling stations, and utilization, mainly on fuel cells for mobile and stationary applications. In comparison, safety considerations for hydrogen storage in small or medium scale facilities, as usual in hydrogen production plants from renewable energies, have received relatively less attention.
After a brief introduction to risk assessment for hydrogen facilities, this paper reports an example of risk assessment of a small solar hydrogen storage system, applied to the INTA Solar Hydrogen Production and Storage facility as particular case, and considers a top level Preliminary Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) for the identification of hazard associated to the specific characteristics of the facility.