Development of safety standard for mobile hydrogen refueling facilities in China
Introduction
With the rapid progress of hydrogen facilities in China, the development of regulations, codes and standards is always a critical concern to facilitate the implementation of the new hydrogen infrastructure for commercial use. The National Technical Committee on Hydrogen Energy of Standardization Administration of China (SAC/TC309) has made a lot of efforts in the development of regulations, codes and standards associated with hydrogen technologies. One of the achievements related to hydrogen infrastructure is the GB50516-2010 Technical Code for Hydrogen Fuelling Station [1]. The promulgation of this national standard has greatly promote the development of stationary hydrogen fuelling facilities in terms of siting requirements, layout plan, construction and approval, system operation, process safety and risk management, etc. However, this standard is specifically designed for stationary hydrogen refueling station and may not be convenient to appropriately apply to mobile hydrogen refueling facilities.
The mobile hydrogen refueling facilities have become more and more popular due to their many advantages such as low cost and high flexibility. Especially in urban environment, the mobile hydrogen refueling vehicles do not have so many siting difficulties as stationary hydrogen refueling stations. In China, there are generally two types of hydrogen refueling facilities in operation. One is mobile hydrogen refueling vehicle, the other is portable hydrogen refueling device. Both types are quite welcomed especially in those cities which have short-term hydrogen needs for fuel cell vehicle demonstrations.
For the first type, there are three generation of hydrogen refueling vehicles developed by Tongji University and Shanghai Sunwise Energy System Company, shown in Fig. 1. The first and second generation were developed in 2004 and 2007, respectively, to support the research and development of fuel cell vehicles in Shanghai from 2004 to 2009. The mobile hydrogen refueling vehicles were originally designed to help support early hydrogen fuel cell vehicles initiatives, and later turned to help establish hydrogen refueling network in Shanghai. With the support of the National High Technology R&D Program, the third generation of mobile HRS has been greatly improved in terms of filling efficiencies, safety barriers, operation protocols, and other key performances such as compression capabilities [2]. In 2010 World Expo, the third generation, as a part of a hydrogen supply network, successfully served 100 fuel cell sight-seeing cars in the Expo Site [3]. For the second type, split-type portable hydrogen refueling devices were developed and operated in 2010 and thereafter. This type of transportable hydrogen refueling facilities was successfully applied in fuel cell vehicle demonstration program in 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, and in 2011 World University Games in Shenzhen, shown in Fig. 2.
The implementation of mobile hydrogen refueling facilities helps attract millions of people's interest towards hydrogen-powered vehicles by virtue of high-profile public events. At the same time, the safety concern on the mobile hydrogen refueling facilities has been rising in both public authorities and private bodies. The technical requirements, safety management and other safety operation conditions need to be standardized. To further facilitate the application of mobile hydrogen refueling facilities, a new standard is now under drafting. This new standard, Safety Technical Regulations for Mobile Hydrogen Refueling Facility, can be considered as an extension of GB50516-2010 and is expected to be issued next year.
Section snippets
Overview of the new standard for mobile hydrogen refueling facilities
The intention of the new standard is to improve the safety of mobile hydrogen refueling facilities in engineering practice. The essential contents of the draft comprise three aspects that consist of technical safety requirements, operation management, transportation and maintenance. Other contents such as scopes, terminologies and references are supplementary parts, though there are a few highlights in them. A list of important referenced regulations, codes and standards is given below. These
Creation of a work area
One of the features in the new standard for mobile hydrogen facilities is the creation of work area that defines a specific region for the allocation of equipment, the installation of devices, and the operation of filling tasks. A work area is the only place in which mobile hydrogen facilities are permitted to stay and be in operation.
An important experience learned from engineering practice is that system failures or leak events are more likely to occur in filling operation and maintenance
Future work perspectives
This paper introduces the development of safety standard for mobile hydrogen refueling facilities in China. Future work needed to be done associated with mobile hydrogen refueling facilities can be proposed as below.
- (1)
The current standard is drafted for gaseous hydrogen refueling facilities and other types of hydrogen storage such as liquid hydrogen and cryo-compressed hydrogen are not included. In the future, new types of hydrogen storage options may be applied in mobile hydrogen refueling
Acknowledgment
The work is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51306071), the High-technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2012AA053305), and the Science and Technology Committee of Shanghai Municipality (Grant No. 12dz1202500).
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