Strength of Knowledge and Uncertainties in Safety Regulation of Hydrogen as an Energy Carrier

Ahead of a potential large-scale implementation of hydrogen as an energy carrier in society, safety regulation systems should be in place to provide a systematic consideration of safety related concerns. Knowledge is essential for regulatory activities. At the same time, it is challenging to obtain sufficient information when regulating emerging technologies – it may be difficult to address informational shortcomings in regulatory matters as analysts can be prone to under-communicate the significance of uncertainties. Furthermore, Strength of Knowledge (SoK) has been developed to address the quality of background knowledge in risk analyses. An example of a SoK framework, is based on the following four conditions that is used to assess whether knowledge can be considered weak or strong: the issue of simplifications, availability and reliability of data, consensus among experts, and general understanding of the phenomena in question. In theory, this concept seems relevant for the introduction of hydrogen as an energy carrier, mainly because there is little historical data to develop sound analyses, creating uncertainties. However, there are no clear-cut guidelines as to how knowledge gaps should be handled in the development of regulatory requirements. In this paper, we consider the relevance of a specific approach for SoK assessment in the context of safety and security regulation of hydrogen as an energy carrier in society. We conclude that there are some challenges with the proposed framework and argue that further research should be conducted to identify or develop a method for handling uncertainties in regulatory processes, regarding hydrogen systems as energy carriers in societies.