Overview of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office Safety, Codes & Standards Activities

For over two decades, the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) has led Research, Development, & Demonstration (RD&D) activities to enable the commercial viability and safe adoption of hydrogen and fuel cell technologies that benefit multiple applications and sectors. Given the value of hydrogen and fuel cells beyond transportation, the HFTO RD&D focus includes industrial uses, energy storage, grid integration, and heavy-duty transportation applications.

To enable widespread commercialization and safe deployment of these emerging applications, HFTO’s Safety, Codes, & Standards (SCS) activities provide the fundamental understanding of the relevant physics, critical data, and safety information used to develop and revise technically sound and defensible codes and standards. SCS identifies and evaluates safety and risk assessment approaches that can be used to define requirements for and close gaps in codes and standards in a timely manner. SCS collaborations among researchers in government, industry, and academia focus on advanced analysis of critical hydrogen behavior data and development of safety and sensing technologies to support the development and deployment of hydrogen codes and standards. These collaborations also identify tools and methodologies for dissemination through best practices and lessons learned, such as on the H2Tools.org site and through the Hydrogen Safety Panel.