Overview of the New Combined Gasoline/Hydrogen Supply Station and Relevant Regulations in Japan

When a hydrogen supply station is to be installed in Japan, three fundamental laws must be taken into consideration: the High Pressure Gas Safety Law, the Building Standards Law, and the Fire Service Law. The High Pressure Gas Safety Law in particular regulates procedures for safety concerning hydrogen supply stations. This law came under review accompanying consideration of the potential utilization of fuel cell vehicles and hydrogen stations. At that time, the Japan Petroleum Energy Center (JPEC) investigated safety technology for hydrogen supply stations and prepared a draft of the law. Since then, a new combined gasoline/hydrogen supply station compliant with the revised law was established on December 2006. There are a large number of safety precautions incorporated into this station model which conform to the law. As a result of these modifications, it was possible to reduce the safe setback distance. In this paper we present an overview of the new hydrogen supply station model, the safety precautions, and the regulations the station is based on.