Author: Ulrich Schmidtchen

This year’s General Assembly of HySafe was held on November 13 in Washington (D. C., USA). Apart from discussing about the objectives of the association and how to achieve them and the budget a few changes in the composition of the board were made. Hervé Barthélémy and Alexei Kotchourko were no longer available as heads of the industry relations and the research committee, respectively. The meeting expressed great appreciation for the work both had done during their terms.

Akiteru Maruta (Technova, Japan) is new head of the committee responsible for industry relations. He is also the right person to promote the contacts to interested parties in Asia, where hydrogen technology plays an increasingly important role.

Jay O. Keller (Zero Carbon Energy Solutions, Oakland, California, USA) was elected new head of the research committee. Mr. Keller is also Consultant to the US DOE and Senior Technical Specialist at FCHEA and active in the global standardization in ISO TC 197 “Hydrogen Technologies”.

It has been brought to our attention that some dubious organisation called WASET organizes conferences on various topics, one of them under the name “International Conference on Hydrogen Safety and Security”, another is called “International Conference on Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Safety”.

Please take note that neither event has anything to do with HySafe or with ICHS^® series of bi-annual conferences owned and organized by HySafe since 2005. The scientific value of these events is extremely doubtful.

The next ICHS^® will be held in October 2015 in Japan. Please look up the website of the real ICHS^® for accurate information. You will find it here:

ICHS 2015

International Conference on Hydrogen Safety^® is registered trademark of the International Association for Hydrogen Safety, HySafe. Every abuse will be prosecuted.

Abstracts for contributions to the ICHS^® 2015 can no longer be submitted. The deadline was December 31, 2014.

But it is still possible to become a sponsor for the conference on different levels.

Please find all details on the conference website: ICHS^® 2015

The World Hydrogen Energy Conference (WHEC) 2014 will be opened tomorrow, June 16, in Gwangju, South Korea. This is the biggest and most important scientific conference on hydrogen energy in the world.

While hydrogen safety will also be an important topic of the official conference program HySafe used the occasion to highlight the connection between hydrogen safety and international standardization, with a special focus on Asia.

The session was opened by Andrej Tchouvelev, who is not only the president of HySafe but also the chairman of ISO TC 197 “Hydrogen Technologies” and who can thus discuss the topic from both sides. He gave a few remarks on safety generally, on HySafe and the work of ISO TC 197.
The focus on Asia was emphasized by the three other speakers from China, Japan, and South Korea, who presented the state of the field in their countries and what problems they have to overcome respectively if they want for example to get an approval for a hydrogen refilling station. Obstacles are still numerous, but the experts who attended got the impression that things are moving in the right direction, even if the movement might be a bit faster.

Please find here the presentations as PDF files:

Tchouvelev: Introduction to HySafe
Tchouvelev: ISO TC 197
Tchouvelev: Safety and Risk and Hydrogen Properties
Mao: Development of National Standards on Hydrogen Energy Technology in China
Miyashita: Update on Regulation Review for HRS Construction and Operations in Japan
Lee: Status of Hydrogen Energy in Korea; Lee Part 1, Lee Part 2

This year HySafe was again an exhibitor at the Hannover Fair as part of the Group Exhibit “Hydrogen + Fuel Cells + Batteries” from April 7 to 11. This Group Exhibit was a jubilee – it was the 20^th time. What had started in 1995 with a dozen exhibitors from one country on less than 150 m² has grown to a major event with 150 exhibitors from 25 countries on 5000 m².

HySafe was an exhibitor togehter with EHA, the European Hydrogen Association. The demand for information was high, only rather little of the information papers which had been brought to the fair had to be taken back again.

HySafe also had a slot during the Technical Forum which provides opportunity to discuss matters of interest in some depth. The topic of HySafe this year was underground storage of hydrogen – a matter which becomes more and more important with respect to the necessity to store large amounts of renewable electricity in order to bridge the gap between offer and demand. Is this safe? Watch and listen here:

Presentation on YouTube

In order to celebrate the new start of the EHEC (European Hydrogen Energy Conference) in Sevilla from March 12 to 14 properly in its own way HySafe held a safety workshop there on March 11. Speakers from Spain, France, and Germany discussed general and specific safety matters associated with the use of hydrogen as energy carrier.

The participants appreciated the event, and HySafe hopes that it serves to support the development of hydrogen energy in Spain.

Please find a few photos and impressions of the recent ICHS here:

http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ichs-2013-5th-international-conference-hydrogen-safety

on a website of the EU Joint Research Centre.

The 5th International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS) was closed today in Brussels after three successful days.

The more than 200 participants, who had been offered almost 100 submitted papers plus plenary presentations, apparently had the same feeling. On the morning of the last day the activities were put into a historical perspective in a plenary session. Speakers from China, Japan, EU, California, and the USA made clear how enormous the progress is which has been made – and that there is still a long way to go.

During the closing session the participants and all other interested parties were invited to Japan for the 6th ICHS 2015. Details about location and date will be announced shortly, as promised by Aki Maruta from Technova, representative of the local organizers.

Andrei Tchouvelev, HySafe president, and Marco Carcassi, responsible for the scientific content of the event, promised that the 2015 conference would be even better than the one in Brussels. An ambitious goal, after this year’s success. But let us wait and see. We look forward to meeting you in Japan in 2015.

Today the second day of the 5th International Conference on Hydrogen Safety (ICHS) in Brussels offered a full program of information to the participants. Among the topics were sensorics, improved standardization, and explosion effects in confined spaces.

A new feature which had never been included in this conference before was a webinar in the afternoon. This made it possible for interested parties in particular in North America and in Europe to follow at least a part of the conference.

The organizers are very satisfied with the conference at this time. Both financially and scientifically it is a success.