2023 Center for Hydrogen Safety Europe Conference

Lessons learned from LH2 unloading of refueling station in public area

Author

The development of Liquid to Gas Hydrogen Refueling Stations (LtG HRS) to support deployment of FCEV vehicles shall drastically increase the number of LH2 deliveries.

The transfilling process from road tanker to stationary tank requires several steps to ensure a safe operation of the LH2 tank filling. As of today, the operator/driver performs these steps manually. This implies the operation of several manual valves in each step, that could lead to safety events in case of non respect of the procedure.

The implementation of an appropriate solution will shorten the operations and impose a strict respect of handling steps for LH2 unloading procedure, increasing the safety of this process by providing safety safeguards.

The objectives are :

  • - Perform the delivery procedure strictly to limit the manual operation of the operator/driver (limit human errors)
  • - Monitor potential deviations during delivery and abort the unloading process in case of safety deviation
  • - Ensure that the delivery procedure is always performed in the same way even with different operators/drivers.

In line with its "safety first" motto, Air Liquide is promoting high level of safety for LH2 unloading for refueling stations. This interface needs to be managed, and potentially standardized within notified bodies.