Overview of Doe Activities Addressing Hydrogen Release Concerns

Industry stakeholders, researchers, and many among the hydrogen safety community have recently been asked to respond to public concerns that indirect impacts of hydrogen releases on global warming can reduce the projected decarbonization benefits of hydrogen. Major topics of concern include the need for improved monitoring of potential releases across large-scale projects, the need for new knowledge and more precise data about hydrogen release rates, and objective information about the prevalence of low level leaks.

We present the current status of knowledge regarding the potential environmental impacts of hydrogen releases and a high-level overview of projects funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office. Activities include collaboration with NOAA to improve understanding of atmospheric effects of hydrogen releases, and RD&D projects developing low level detection and quantification technologies, data collection of releases and leak rates, and advancement of release detection in indoor and outdoor environments.

In addition, we have developed the Hydrogen Component Reliability Database (HyCRED) project to collect reliability data that can be used in quantitative risk assessment, reliability, safety studies, maintenance planning, and more. The database is being piloted with hydrogen fueling stations with long term plans to expand the taxonomy and data collection across the hydrogen value chain. This presents a unique opportunity for proactive industry collaboration to provide data and real-world experience that will help understand how hydrogen component reliability impacts infrastructure availability and safe deployment, and may have important implications for providing objective information about hydrogen release events.