ExpectedOutcome:In order to contribute to the 2030 Climate plan, the ‘Fit for 55’ climate action plan and Green Deal, it is of the utmost importance that the quality of hydrogen fuel dispensed at the Hydrogen Refuelling Station (HRS) is meeting the applicable requirements (Directive on Alternative Fuels Infrastructure, Directive 2014/94/EU[1] and proposal for a regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure 2021/0223(COD)[2] and standards EN17124:2018 & ISO14687:2019. The presence of impurities will cause Fuel Cell (FC) degradation and will dramatically impact the FC durability of the zero emission Fuel Cell Electrical Vehicles (FCEV’s). This will have detrimental effects on customer satisfaction and competitiveness of the FC technology, jeopardising the establishment of the hydrogen society.

To secure the dispensing of H2 up to quality standard, significant measures from production up to HRS nozzle should be taken. In addition, a hydrogen quality assurance plan guaranteeing the quality at the nozzle should be in place. These requirements are directly affecting the hydrogen price. EN17124:2018 is describing two possible hydrogen quality assura... ver más

ExpectedOutcome:In order to contribute to the 2030 Climate plan, the ‘Fit for 55’ climate action plan and Green Deal, it is of the utmost importance that the quality of hydrogen fuel dispensed at the Hydrogen Refuelling Station (HRS) is meeting the applicable requirements (Directive on Alternative Fuels Infrastructure, Directive 2014/94/EU[1] and proposal for a regulation on the deployment of alternative fuels infrastructure 2021/0223(COD)[2] and standards EN17124:2018 & ISO14687:2019. The presence of impurities will cause Fuel Cell (FC) degradation and will dramatically impact the FC durability of the zero emission Fuel Cell Electrical Vehicles (FCEV’s). This will have detrimental effects on customer satisfaction and competitiveness of the FC technology, jeopardising the establishment of the hydrogen society.

To secure the dispensing of H2 up to quality standard, significant measures from production up to HRS nozzle should be taken. In addition, a hydrogen quality assurance plan guaranteeing the quality at the nozzle should be in place. These requirements are directly affecting the hydrogen price. EN17124:2018 is describing two possible hydrogen quality assurance methodologies: a prescriptive approach and a Risk Assessment (RA) based approach. It is the current industry consensus that the RA approach is the most cost effective one, but it cannot be applied as the required Occurrence Class for each impurity is not clarified in the EU market (as described in ISO19880-8:2019 & EN17124:2018). In addition, the existing EU hydrogen quality laboratories still need to be fully validated according to ISO21087:2019 for real market application. Furthermore, in case an HRS is dispensing impure hydrogen, the station should be closed for maintenance until the problem is solved; a procedure that has long been established in detail for conventional fuels. In conclusion, the hydrogen quality management directly impacts the hydrogen price as well as the availability of the refuelling stations and consequently are affecting the Clean Hydrogen for Europe JU objectives.

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

Widespread utilisation of the cost effective hydrogen quality assurance system by HRS operators based on RA as described in ISO19880-8:2019 & EN17124:2018 enabled by the developed Occurrence Class statistically representing the EU market (by 300 samples during the project);EU based hydrogen quality assurance infrastructure, including an operational network of at least 5 laboratories with market-proven capability confirmed through regular proficiency testing to the required standards;Alignment and standardisation of the hydrogen quality sampling and analysis at the nozzle of EU HRS, including an interoperable methodology and approach for 350 & 700 bar sampling;Guided future research efforts in the field of hydrogen quality (e.g. online analysers, sensors) based on the established open source database of hydrogen impurity occurrence representative to the EU market. Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following objectives of the Clean Hydrogen JU SRIA: (Pillar 2: Hydrogen storage and distribution - Hydrogen refuelling stations):

To support the availability of heavy-duty Hydrogen Refuelling Stations: 98% of HRS availability for 350 & 700 bar stations;Mean time between failures of 144 and 72 days for 350 & 700 bar stations respectively. To support the creation of a network of Heavy-duty Hydrogen Refuelling Stations across Europe while contributing to the decrease of the total cost of ownership of Hydrogen Refuelling stations by more than 50%: decrease of HRS contribution in the hydrogen price to €2 and €3 per kg for 350 & 700 bar stations respectively;achievement of total cost of ownership (TCO) of €10 and €6 per kg for Light Duty and Heavy-Duty FCEV respectively.
Scope:The HyCoRa and HYDRAITE FCH JU funded projects[3] focussed on the impact of hydrogen impurities on the FC (in particular to assess the severity level) and conducted a limited sampling effort, resulting in about 48 samples taken and analysed from the market over a period of about 6 years. The outcome was that not all HRS are conform to the existing quality standards; in addition, this amount of publicly accessible data is too limited to be representative to the occurrence of impurities in the EU market. Such information is required in order to enable the cost-efficient RA quality assurance approach (requiring the Occurrence Class next to Severity Level as described in EN17124:2018). The EURAMET MetroHyVe[4] project developed sampling and hydrogen quality analysis methodologies on laboratory scale that need still to be validated for real market application. In addition, an initial effort in hydrogen purity laboratory proficiency testing was conducted; 4 impurities (H2S, CO, N2 & H2O) were evaluated by 13 global laboratories, showing significant differences between laboratory results. Thereof, a regular continuation of the inter-laboratory comparison for the entire list of contaminants stipulated by the technical standards is required.

Following actions need to be tackled in order to address the expected outcomes successfully:

Clarification of the Occurrence Class of the impurities in the EU market (as stipulated in ISO19880-8:2019 & EN17124:2018 (Table 2 – Occurrence Classes for each impurity)), to enable the RA approach for hydrogen quality assurance. The number of samples acting as a base to define the Occurrence Class is described in action number 3, stated below. Next to the hydrogen quality samples, all required HRS specifics to allow the utilisation of this information as an input for the Occurrence Class of the HRS quality RA should be collected. These will be defined based on input obtained from at least 5 relevant stakeholders such as gas & technology suppliers and HRS operators;Validate the capability of at least 5 EU based hydrogen purity laboratories, for both sampling as well as analysing hydrogen according to the applicable standards ISO19880-1:2020, ISO19880-8:2019, EN17124:2018 and ISO21087:2019, or their respective revisions. Validity of the utilised techniques should be evidenced by mass market investigation of the EU hydrogen quality as stipulated in action number 3, stated below. Next, proficiency testing up to standard level should be regularly conducted and has to be an integral part of the activity. The proficiency results should be made publicly available in an anonymised way. Root cause analysis should be conducted in case of diverging test results and countermeasures should be developed. Utilisation of technologies and methodologies researched in past funded projects (see above) is expected and support from the EU metrological network is recommended;As a prerequisite to support activity 1 & 2, and to make the information available for future learnings, a publicly accessible hydrogen quality database representing the hydrogen quality supplied in the EU should be established. In order to get a representative and statistical overview of the hydrogen quality dispensed at 350 & 700 bar stations in the EU market, at least 100 samples from the HRSs should be collected and analysed per year, of which maximum 25% of the samples are obtained from the same HRS. The utilised methodologies’ interoperability should be maximised to be applicable on different pressures (350 & 700 bar). The location of samples taken will be in proportion to the geographically spread of HRSs across the EU. In addition, the occurrence of at least 4 impurities beyond EN17124:2018 and ISO21087:2019: i.e. new non-standardised impurities or not well-defined impurities such as ‘total’ sulphur or halogenated compounds of a selected number of samples should be investigated by utilisation of wide scope analytical techniques.Based on the output of objectives 1, 2 and 3, a working group should clarify the development need or improvement opportunities in the field of hydrogen quality assurance. In addition, recommendations to support the development of the future HRS sampling standard (ISO19880-9, TC197) should be made. As the scope of the topic contains significant portions of measurement and analysis, cooperation with the European metrology community, such as the European Metrology Network for Energy Gases[5] of EURAMAT, should be pursued. Within this context proposals should explain how they would complement and avoid overlaps with the ongoing activities of EURAMET, e.g. project MetroHyVe2[6].

In order for the proposal to reach the expected outcome, the deliverables should be disseminated at the end of the proposal to the hydrogen mobility and hydrogen refuelling infrastructure communities and relevant working groups of the standardisation technical committee’s such as ISO TC 197, ISO TC 158 & CEN TC 268, including the new standard under development ISO19880-9 (TC 197), related to HRS sampling. Proposals are encouraged to include a formal standardisation body within the consortium.

Proposals are expected to contribute towards the activities of Mission Innovation 2.0 - Clean Hydrogen Mission. Cooperation with entities from Clean Hydrogen Mission member countries, which are neither EU Member States nor Horizon Europe Associated countries, is encouraged (see section 2.2.6.8 International Cooperation).

Activities are expected to start at TRL 3 and achieve TRL 5 by the end of the project.

The conditions related to this topic are provided in the chapter 2.2.3.2 of the Clean Hydrogen JU 2022 Annual Work Plan and in the General Annexes to the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2021–2022 which apply mutatis mutandis.


[1]https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/en/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A32014L0094

[2]https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/revision_of_the_directive_on_deployment_of_the_alternative_fuels_infrastructure_with_annex_0.pdf

[3]https://www.clean-hydrogen.europa.eu/projects-repository_en

[4]https://www.euramet.org/research-innovation/search-research-projects/details/project/metrology-for-hydrogen-vehicles/?tx_eurametctcp_project%5Baction%5D=show&tx_eurametctcp_project%5Bcontroller%5D=Project&cHash=306d1f42e20989c0b2658abf0f76c8ca

[5]https://www.euramet.org/european-metrology-networks/energy-gases/what-we-do/

[6]https://www.euramet.org/research-innovation/search-research-projects/details/project/metrology-for-hydrogen-vehicles-2/?L=0&tx_eurametctcp_project%5Baction%5D=show&tx_eurametctcp_project%5Bcontroller%5D=Project&cHash=9875d9a3fb9cfbdf8e44d44e12ac5eea

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