Hydrogen Safety

 
For a change this is a technical blog but then I use this as a repository for all my writings and so here it is.

The flavour of the day in India & even abroad today is #Hydrogen & we have seen many projects, investments being announced, while some have gone ahead with actual projects on a pilot basis. Wanted to share some big picture thoughts based on my personal involvement with the industry.

Hydrogen for all its benefits is unique in the sense that it has a combination of properties that straddle the very extremes making it a challenge on various fronts. Many organisations are pursuing this opportunity, but the weakness as I observe, is that the majority of the organisations look at it in the conventional sense like many other projects they may have handled so far. This to me is not a good idea & barring for luck & god, the risk of a serious accident is significant in the sector.

Unlike other fuels, LPG, CNG and Hydrogen are fuels which are stored & used under pressure. Here LPG would be at around 8 bar, CNG at 200/ 250 bar and Hydrogen at 350/500/700 bar. So, the impact of what may happen in an accident increases exponentially.

Firstly, #Safety in handling Hydrogen cannot be looked at like we would, in our everyday professional life. It requires a higher degree of discipline & attitude to ensure safety, but yet, most organisations still approach it within the existing template.

Secondly, the classic 80/20 rule applies to the Hydrogen eco-system where 80% of investment, focus & effort goes with the 4 Building Block Organisations (BBO) - Electrolysers, Compressors, Storage & Fuel cell/ICE/Dispenser with the 20% related to system Design, Engineering, Safety systems, Fabrication & Installation - which can be termed as Balance of Plant (BoP).

Finally, when it comes to Safety, the 20% decides the safety & has 80% of the risk, but is invariably given much less emphasis, as compared to the attention given to the 4 building blocks.

What most don't realise is that be it LPG or CNG, Hydrogen, whatever the accidents that may have happened globally & in India, are rarely related to the major building blocks used in the eco-system. 80% of the accidents happen due to faults in the system design/engineering/ installation like leaks in Pipes, Connections, Inadequately designed materials used, Safety equipment etc. The failure in these have a cascading effect, where, in the ultimate analysis, one of the building blocks may fail & a possible catastrophic event occurs. This data is rather old from a USA Govt study on Hydrogen leaks, but the contours of the data even today would not change too much. Even by sheer engineering logic, it is clear that equipments don't leak, the inter-connections do.

The logical reasoning for this, is that each of the building blocks are manufactured in controlled factories by trained experts following clear protocols & rarely if ever, do they fail. The 20% BoP is done in the field & often, the project authority ends up asking one of the BBO's to integrate the whole, or decide to look at each in different silos & decide accordingly. In any option the 20% gets only 20% focus, which in my view is a serious compromise of safety in a Hydrogen project since, the risk of something falling between the gaps is high. While this is not to say that everybody is failing in this approach, most still look at a Hydrogen project with a - Business as usual - approach & this in my view is risky.

Almost all organisations seem to think, that one of the building blocks - Electrolyser, Compressor, Storage, Fuel cell/ICE/ Dispenser - is the key to the whole project in terms of technology and they end up putting 80% of their focus on this, and then hope, that one of these will also manage the 20% BoP. In reality such project managers are mixing up cost and technology, and increasing risk. This to me, is like putting the cart before the horse. Based on the project requirements, the cost of one of the segments like Hydrogen storage, can be higher than the Electrolyser. But everybody gets fixated on the Electrolyser to a point where they miss the woods for the tree.

My personal suggestion in implementing Hydrogen projects is that an organisation needs to give significant 80% focus to the 20% BoP portion which a EPC/ Contracting company could do, assuming that they have the exposure and experience of handling high pressure Hydrogen systems from a design, engineering and component selection point of view. Rather than focus on one of the BBO's to handle this 20%, the user organisation must focus on the 20% BoP to ensure safety and performance in a cost effective manner. The heart of such a system, especially when large quantities of Hydrogen are involved, are the software and operations design systems, that optimise the whole BoP which none of the BBO's can do. A experienced in Hydrogen BoP, can actually help organisations reduce their total cost by optimising the whole plant to meet their requirements.

Today, most organisations approach this with a silo based management where each segment equipment supplier tries to push and sell what maximises their revenue/profits, rather than what can ensure cost effective success of the customer.

An ideal way of approaching a Hydrogen project should be, where a contract is first given to a experienced high pressure (Hydrogen) engineering EPC company to conceptualise and design a cost effective system architecture. Once that is in place, the customer can then stipulate, that they will be involved in the selection of each of the major BBO's supplier's to control both the cost and technology along with the EPC company. Once selected they can leave it to the EPC company to do the BoP, by conceptualising the final design and engineering, which would involve safety, cost and process optimisation. The EPC can then integrate the eco-system. In this approach SAFETY automatically will get the highest focus, because, the BoP organisation would be focussing on that with high pressure and Hydrogen experience.

While it would be a different subject, one can explain in detail how a EPC facility integrator, can design a more cost optimised plant and prove that with costs and data.

If I may stick my neck out to predict the future steps, the industry will likely move to this kind of approach outlined here only after they face safety challenges in the field, which to me would be a unfortunate way to understand safety in Hydrogen by experience rather than science.