UK Announces Launch of a Unique Hydrogen Testing Facility
Stuart Hawksworth, Head of Explosion Safety, Health and Safety Laboratory
 On Tuesday October 9, 2007 the UK Health and Safety Laboratory (HSL) officially launched a unique hydrogen test facility on its 550 acre site in Buxton, Derbyshire. The day also included a tour of HSL facilities associated with hydrogen health and safety challenges.
The facility exceeds all current technologies with an unrivalled capability to test hydrogen systems up to pressures of 1000bar. It also provides flexibility to investigate all foreseeable high-pressure hydrogen applications ranging from refuelling and bulk storage to component and materials testing.
As part of European, and in some cases, World-wide effort, HSL are working at the forefront to ensure the safe introduction and commercialization of hydrogen as an energy carrier. Society’s expectations are obviously that Hydrogen technologies and applications should provide at least the same level of safety and reliability as today's fossil energy carriers. To help meet these challenges HSL has developed this unique hydrogen test facility.
The launch of the experimental hydrogen compression/release facility took place on Tuesday 9 October and was organized to coincide with a meeting being hosted at HSL of the HySafe European Network of Excellence (NoE). Over 50 representatives from more than 30 organizations with key roles in research and development of hydrogen technology were welcomed to the event by HSL’s Chief Executive, Eddie Morland.
After presentations from HySafe NoE Coordinator Thomas Jordan and HSL’s Head of Explosion Safety, Dr Stuart Hawksworth, the guests were shown specially filmed footage of preliminary high-pressure tests using the facility. The visitors were then escorted to the testing pad to see the system up close.
Hysafe NoE Coordinator, Thomas Jordan commended the new facility which he said, "would contribute enormously to achieving HySafe’s goal to promote public awareness and trust in hydrogen technology."
The unique testing facility is a major investment for the laboratory and recognizes the new safety challenges presented by using hydrogen as an alternative fuel. As a clean fuel with zero carbon emissions, hydrogen is widely seen as the future’s premier energy carrier and has been used safely for many years as an industrial gas by the aerospace and chemical industries.
For more information on the hydrogen facility please contact:
Paul Baker
Central Business Development
Tel +44 (0) 1298 218799
paul.baker@hsl.gov.uk
For more information on the HySafe project, visit www.hysafe.org.
About HSL
HSL has been leading the way in health and safety since 1911, and our expertise in the field is internationally recognized. Operating as an agency of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), we support their mission to protect people's health and safety by ensuring risks in the changing workplace are properly controlled.
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