Development of H2 Safety expert groups and due diligence tools for public awareness and trust in hydrogen technologies and applications.

Although many predictions for the hydrogen economy in the last decade have proven optimistic, the maturity of it is now increasingly evident by the substantial investments in R&D, demonstration and industrialisation made by public and private institutions in Europe. The USA and Japan are leading the hydrogen based energy infrastructure, becoming a mainstream solution for society’s need to transition to clean, renewable and widely available energy sources. To ensure that non-technical barriers to the deployment of Fuel Cell and Hydrogen (FCH) technologies are properly addressed, the H2TRUST project has been created by a team of highly experienced and qualified industry and academic experts with the following objectives:

- Assess industry efforts to assure FCH technology is safe and that there is an adequate regulation, hazard awareness, incident readiness and ability to respond to public concerns.
- Hazard and risk assessment in the FCH industry in each of the main application areas (H2 Production, Storage and Distribution, Mobility and Vehicles, Non-vehicles and residential power generation).
- Systematically map safety issues and assess how they are addressed.
- Compile information demonstrating safety due diligence and best practices.
- Seek input from previous, on-going and upcoming Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking (FCH JU) demonstrations and pre-normative and training projects and from similar international activities.
- Make recommendations for further safety efforts by FCH community.
- Develop communications network to manage public reaction to incidents and give documented responses.
- Disseminate the results so as to create a long lasting culture of safety practices in the industry and a legacy of tools and knowledge serving to reinforce best practices and assure public confidence.
H2TRUST is a response to the FCH JU call for proposals in their Annual Implementation Plan of 2012, page 101(Topic SP1-JTI-FCH.2012.5.5: Assessment of safety issues related to fuel cells and hydrogen applications).

Topic:

SP1-JTI-FCH.2012.5.5 - Assessment of safety issues related to fuel cells and hydrogen applications

Coordinator:

MATGAS 2000 A.I.E., Spain

Contact:

Dr. Lourdes Vega

Other participating organisations: