CGA Hydrogen Safety Activities

by Jennifer Gangi, FCHEA

On May 5, 2022, the Compressed Gas Association (CGA) held an hour-long webinar entitled, “CGA’s Role in Hydrogen: Safety is Step One.”  The two speakers were Rich Gottwald, CGA President and CEO, and Rich Craig, CGA’s Vice President, Technical and Regulatory Affairs.

CGA has been involved in hydrogen standards development for more than 50 years.  The association conducted a survey and found that 92% of consumers wanted to know hydrogen fuel cell technology was safe before they would consider using it.

As a response, in the Fall of 2021, CGA launched a new campaign focused on educating various audiences about hydrogen safety and CGA’s role in developing standards overseeing the different aspects of hydrogen use and applications, including production, storage, use, pipelines, design considerations for stations, and more.  This includes ones CGA has enacted and is currently working on, as well as ones CGA is partnering with other development organizations and groups like FCHEA and others.

Since CGA started effort, they are receiving lots of interest from companies looking to learn more about utilizing hydrogen and becoming involved developing the standards that impact their industry, including new, yet growing sectors such as aviation and marine.

A full list of CGA standards pertaining to hydrogen can be found here.

 CSA Fuel Cell Technical Committee Seeks Additional Experts

by Karen Quackenbush, FCHEA

CSA Group, an ANSI-accredited Standards Development Organization (SDO), is seeking additional experts to serve on the bi-national Fuel Cell Technical Committee. The Fuel Cell Technical Committee develops and maintains minimum safety standards and essential requirements for the design construction and maintenance of:

a) stationary, portable, and micro fuel cells;
b) hydrogen generation technologies using all fuels (e.g., electrolysis, coal, natural gas);
c) related components and equipment for stationary, portable and micro fuel cells; and
d) related components and equipment installed for hydrogen generation technologies using all fuels.

CSA is seeking interested stakeholders who will actively participate and contribute to the development and maintenance of these important standards through CSA’s accredited Standards Development Process(es).

The Technical Committee is seeking members in the following categories:

User interest — those who predominantly represent consumer interests or end users of the subject product(s), material(s), or service(s), and who are not involved in any way in production or distribution of the subject product(s), material(s), or service(s).

Regulatory authority — those who are predominantly involved in regulating the use of the subject product(s), material(s), or service(s).

What is expected?
·         Strong interest and knowledge of the subject matter
·         Active participation and willingness to work on a Technical Committee electronically and in-person
·         Ability to represent a stakeholder category outlined above
·         Ability to work in a multi-stakeholder environment, following the principles of consensus

If you are interested in participating as a new member of the CSA Fuel Cell Technical Committee, please submit a brief bio along with a statement outlining your interest and ability to contribute to the work to Mark Duda at mark.duda@csagroup.org. If you know of a colleague who may be interested in this project, feel free to have them contact CSA Group.

FTA to Host Webinar on Bus Exportable Power Systems Notice of Funding Opportunity (May 25)

by Karen Quackenbush, FCHEA

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) will host a webinar at 2:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday, May 25, 2022, on the Standard Development for Bus Exportable Power Systems Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO), which FTA announced in April. The webinar will offer potential applicants an overview of the program and provide an opportunity to submit questions.

The FY21 Standard Development for Bus Exportable Power Systems Program will provide $1 million in funding under FTA’s Technical Assistance and Workforce Development Program (49 U.S.C. 5314) to one or more organizations or partnerships to develop standards for exportable power systems from hybrid electric and fuel-cell-powered buses. Previous FTA grants led to the development of technology to convert hybrid electric/fuel-cell buses into mobile power generators in the wake of natural disasters. This NOFO is designed to fund the development of standards and increase the use of interoperable exportable power systems that can supply electricity to community buildings, emergency shelters, and hospitals during power disruptions.

Applications are due by June 13, 2022.

Links:
Register for webinar
News Release
BEPS landing page
Notice of Funding Opportunity
Federal Register

Manufacturing Automation and Recycling for Clean Hydrogen Technologies Meeting

by Karen Quackenbush, FCHEA

The U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office, in collaboration with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory, is hosting a virtual Manufacturing Automation and Recycling for Clean Hydrogen Technologies Experts Meeting May 24–26, 2022. DOE invites stakeholders to assess research, development, and demonstration needs and set new research targets and strategies for clean hydrogen manufacturing and recycling efforts initiated by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

This meeting will focus on identifying opportunities (e.g., technology advancement, cost reduction, environmental impact mitigation) for domestic manufacturing of proton exchange membrane and solid oxide fuel cells and accompanying systems (including carbon fiber composite storage tanks for hydrogen) through process automation, as well as for end-of-life remanufacturing and recycling.

Visit the meeting web page to view the agenda and register. 

ENTSO-E: Hydrogen Requires Appropriate Regulatory Framework in Europe

by Karen Quackenbush, FCHEA

A level playing field for different energy carriers to compete and coordinated decarbonization must be supported, say the region’s TSOs.

Hydrogen is set to play a major role in the energy system but so far represents only a modest fraction of the energy mix and the majority of it is produced from fossil fuels.

For hydrogen to contribute to net-zero goals, its production needs to expand to a much larger scale, become fully decarbonized and find a cost-effective place in the electricity system, the TSO association states in a set of policy recommendations it has formulated.

The recommendations address the new roles of hydrogen, its scaling up, planning and operation.

ENTSO-E starts out by stating that hydrogen is a tool for reaching decarbonization and not an end in itself and should be benchmarked against other options in decarbonization initiatives.

Decarbonizing the existing hydrogen demand will be key in accelerating the technological maturity. However, as CO2-free hydrogen requires renewables, direct electrification should be prioritized for decarbonization efficiency and the hydrogen used in sectors where direct electrification is not technically viable or cost efficient.

Scaling and operations

Looking towards the next steps to scaling hydrogen, ENTSO-E points out that the business case to use hydrogen in an electricity system operation support function does not exist and is an imperative to develop.

There should be a scaling up of new technologies and R&D efforts and the EU and member states also should consider the role and impact of European production vs imports.

Turning to planning and operating hydrogen in ‘one system of systems’, ENTSO-E says that a unified system perspective is necessary.

Making hydrogen a flexibility provider to the electrical system will require structural investments beyond the electrolyzers, i.e. to hydrogen grids and storage.

The operational mode of electrolyzers connected to the grid will play a crucial role in the cost and decarbonization of future integrated energy systems. Thus, the location of electrolyzers is a strategic structural question. Appropriate coordination between hydrogen and the electric network system operators is needed to ensure that new assets effectively decarbonize the system without increasing costs.

Finally, multi-sectoral planning of the development of assets with a gradual bottom-up approach from regions to Europe will maximize the potential benefits of hydrogen investments.

The deployment of a future hydrogen infrastructure, both new and repurposed, should also follow a stepwise approach from local clusters to regional and then Pan-European.

“This approach could facilitate optimizing locations and operational patterns while enabling a unified view on energy infrastructure planning,” says ENTSO-E.

For more information, click here.

DOE Workshop Proceedings Available

by Karen Quackenbush, FCHEA

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office (HFTO) has made proceedings from two recent workshops available online.

A virtual Bulk Storage of Gaseous Hydrogen Workshop was held on February 10–11, 2022. The objectives of the two-day workshop were to:
·         Connect industry, end users, and government with stakeholders in bulk gaseous storage or research, development, demonstration, and deployment (RDD&D) projects
·         Improve understanding about the challenges and opportunities in meeting the future energy storage demand
·         Discuss surface and subsurface storage
·         Explore innovative concepts, operational considerations, and RDD&D gaps, and review safety and techno-economic analyses.

Presentations and a summary report are available at https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/bulk-storage-gaseous-hydrogen-workshop.

HFTO and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Cryogenics Technical Discipline Team jointly hosted the virtual Liquid Hydrogen Technologies Workshop on February 22–23, 2022.

The workshop goal was to address development needs for low-cost, energy-efficient, scalable, and safe liquid hydrogen generation, dispensing, and end-use. The workshop included discussions on state-of-the-art technologies, RD&D gaps, innovative concepts, safety, and analysis activities.

Workshop proceedings are available at https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/liquid-hydrogen-technologies-workshop.

Thermal Management Expo (August 29-31)

by Jennifer Gangi, FCHEA

The Thermal Management Expo is taking place August 29-31, 2022, at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, in Cleveland, Ohio.

The Thermal Management Expo brings together senior engineers and decision makers with suppliers of thermal systems and materials to discuss the latest innovations and solutions for thermal management across automotive, aerospace & defense, energy/energy storage, telecom/5G, electronics, and medical applications.

Thermal Management Expo features a free to attend conference and focused workshops on specific thermal management challenges. Expect to see keynotes, panel discussions and technical presentations on emerging technologies, material testing and validation, application design challenges and system integration from senior executives and thought leaders from OEMs, system integrators and technology suppliers.

Click here for more information.