HYFACTS

"Identification, Preparation and Dissemination of Hydrogen Safety Facts to Regulators and Public Safety Officials"

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'HyFacts aims to develop training material for Regulators and Public Safety Officials, which are responsible persons and work for entities, having to position themselves in the increasing number of upcoming installation of hydrogen-related technologies. The training material will focus on the fundamental aspects of hydrogen safety and on the safety approaches and criteria developed in standards and according to which hydrogen systems are engineered for the safe use of hydrogen under all circumstances.

Hydrogen (H2) and its related technologies are relatively new to institutions which are dealing with issues like building regulations, local regulations, public safety and permission of technical installations. Most of the staff of these institutions does not have the necessary knowledge to judge on safety aspects based on real facts but tend to take decisions on the basis of either obsolete or incomplete knowledge or refuse to take any decision at all. This situation leads to heavy delay of decisions or to technically unreasonable, costly and sometimes also very ineffective safety measures to obtain the approval for a hydrogen installation or the allowance to install or operate hydrogen related technologies.

Significant efforts will be devoted to identifying and prioritizing the audiences that would need to be trained to facilitate the commercialization of hydrogen and its related technologies. A vision and road-map for the establishment of permanent training activities for the targeted audiences by recognized institutions, along with the proposal specific initiatives will be an important outcome of the project.

A large amount of new data on the behaviour of hydrogen has been developed during the last years (e.g. HySafe). These are now being applied for the design of new products and applications. It is therefore very important that the persons in charge of ensuring public safety be trained on these new safety approaches.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Few of those having to handle hydrogen know how to do so safely. Thus, an EU-funded project devised training materials and courses, supplying the necessary engineering information and best practices.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The growing use of hydrogen instead of fossil fuels means that more people and organisations need to know how to handle the gas safely. Staff of organisations dealing with hydrogen infrastructure seldom have the required knowledge, potentially increasing hazards and costs.

The http://www.hyfacts.eu (HYFACTS) project did not intend to develop any technologies. Rather, the six-member consortium was a Coordination and Support Action aimed at developing and disseminating relevant training materials. The successfully developed materials focus on fundamental aspects of hydrogen safety. The undertaking ran from February 2011 to July 2013.

Work began with establishing the project website and identifying relevant contacts. A questionnaire was placed on the website and issued to the contacts in order to tailor the packages to the needs of their intended audience. The project received 76 answers, which were analysed for what they indicated about client needs in terms of training content, duration and frequency. The input was incorporated into the project's materials.

The project produced a technical document of 376 pages containing relevant engineering information and international standards. The document was adapted to a more usable form as a course hand-out for participants. The hand-out was modified following each of three short courses, leading to a fifth and final version completed in 2013.

HYFACTS developed training materials dealing with the subject of safe hydrogen storage and usage. Among much else, the packages will facilitate regulatory approval of hydrogen infrastructure, leading to widespread adoption of hydrogen as a primary fuel.