HYDROGEN SAFETY AND IMPROVED PERMIT PROCESSES

Prosjektet Hydrogen Safety and Improved Permit Processes (H2SIPP) er en del av programmet Nordic Hydrogen Valleys as Energy Hubs. Det overordnede målet med H2SIPP er å utvikle en strategi for å redusere hindringer for implementering av hydrogen i de nordiske landene, fra et tillatelses-, sikkerhets- og sosialt akseptperspektiv. Generelt fokuserer prosjektet på tillatelsesprosessen, og spesifikt på fastsettelse av sikkerhetsavstand. Dette anses som en av de store utfordringene for en bred implementering av hydrogenteknologier. NTNU fokuserer på regelverket rettet mot hydrogenverdikjeden i norsk sammenheng gjennom konkrete case-studier. Prosjektet identifiserte teknikker påkrevd for å få tillatelser til oppretting av hydrogenhåndteringsanlegg, som blant andre kvantitativ risikoanalyse. Videre ble hydrogenhåndteringsanlegg sammenlignet med anlegg som bruker konvensjonelle farlige stoffer, i tillegg til en foreløpig risiko analyse av tankstasjoner for hydrogen. Arbeidet vil danne grunnlaget for å presentere en plan for Norden fra et sikkerhets- og tillatelsesperspektiv, med den hensikt å opprettholde og videreutvikle det teknologiske forspranget i mange år fremover.

The overall goal with this project is to develop a strategy to delimit barriers for the implementation of hydrogen in the Nordic countries, from a permit, safety and social acceptance perspective – factors identified as key barriers in recent work. The focus is to support streamlining the permitting process in general and specifically for safety distance determination which are considered one of the major challenges for a broad implementation of hydrogen technologies. The work will be performed by researchers within hydrogen implementation, regulations and organisation, in co-operation with hydrogen safety researchers at LTH, material experts in Aalto Uni. The project is strongly supported by actors across the hydrogen value chain, who all witness of the acute need of improving the permit processes, safety analysis and connected barriers as social acceptance. For the analysis of decision-making permit processes, the project will rely on written materials, on stakeholder interviews and network- analyses capturing, how the decision-making system on hydrogen de facto is organized, what institutional challenges involved actors identifies, and what is required to overcome them (in terms of new legislation and organization). Comparing Sweden and Norway, where the experience of gas is much different due to the offshore industry, in this respect will provide valuable lessons for the future. As part of the engineering research, Aalto will add material safety and reliability analysis supported by tailormade plan for non- destructive testing (NDT). The NDT plan will be developed and validated in pipeline prototypes, made of materials and dimensions representative of real conditions.