(55e) Green Hydrogen Project Safety Assurance Framework

In a wake to current climate changes, many countries have understood and imbibed the fact there is sense of accountable urgency to decarbonize and to strike a feasible balance on the energy dependency between fossil fuels and renewable resources. To be future ready, most of the global energy players have already ventured into the green hydrogen production on a massive scale. In India , these developments have picked up at a rapid pace and considering the landscape, population, and ever-increasing energy demand, it is anticipated that many integrated or standalone green energy facilities will be set up in a shorter span of time. However, in order to ensure safety of the facility, people and assuring business continuity, identification, and implementation of best safety practices across all stages of project lifecycle plays a pivotal role.

In an ariel view, a typical green hydrogen production facility encompasses renewable power generation unit, hydrogen production, storage, and transportation network. Considering green hydrogen as an upcoming sector, it is of utmost importance to identify the hazards, develop optimum risk reduction measures at each stage of project lifecycle and integrate them for inherently safer facilities. This safety assurance framework across project lifecycle framework helps gain confidence of stakeholders and from regulatory authorities.

The green hydrogen project safety assurance framework briefly lists out the requirement of technical safety studies (E.g., Inherent design workshops, layout spacing for solar panels etc.); review safety practices (E.g., development of risk acceptable criteria, tracking of risk reduction measures, etc.) to be adopted; and safety management systems (E.g., asset integrity philosophies for wind mills etc.) to be developed. The overall idea is to provide specific reasonable guidelines for green hydrogen projects across project lifecycle.