The NHA presented information on hydrogen codes and standards on August 19, 2008, at the Texas Hydrogen Roadmap Workshop, held at the Houston Advanced Research Center (HARC), in The Woodlands, Texas.

Goal of the Workshop
The goal of the workshop was to create the starting point for a hydrogen roadmap for the state of Texas with the “Hydrogen Highway” concept developed by other states serving as the backdrop for the roadmap. The development of a “Texas Hydrogen Highway” has legislative authority based in TX House Bill 2702 signed into law in 2005. The idea of a hydrogen highway was further enforced through the recently released National Academies Study in which Houston and Dallas were included as topics for “Lighthouse Studies” in the NAS report and cities like San Antonio and Austin are facing air quality non-attainment for the first time.

Presentation on Codes and Standards
The presentation on codes and standards was given by NHA Executive Vice President, Debbi L. Smith. It was a general presentation appropriate for the expected general audience and focused on permitting. The objective of the presentation was to orient the audience to three key points:

• Texas will not be starting from scratch to build fueling facilities and other components of infrastructure installation. Other states and countries have installations thus providing several models to learn from.
  
  
• Information resources exist for all stages of project development and implementation.
  
  
• Relationships need to be established early with all relevant officials, surrounding community in which installations will take place, and end-users.

Conclusions of the Workshop

• A “Hydrogen Highway” for light duty vehicles does not make sense for Texas at this time.
  
  
• The use of hydrogen for centralized fleets in current non-attainment and soon-to-be non-attainment cities should be pursued with a strategy developed for other areas if it makes sense to do so.
  
  
• End use technology for fleets may or may not include fuel cells.
  
  
• Centralized fleets will include but will not be limited to: transit, trucking, materials handling equipment (private, state and federal gov’t), municipal on and off-road fleets, utility on and off-road fleets, others. Interest has already been expressed by TXDOT for transit, state and municipal fleets.
  
  
• Projects currently under development in three Texas cities all have fleet-based end users identified.
  
  
• Added value will be provided to fueling installations (whether private, or state or federal government) by dual use capabilities for emergency preparedness
  
  
• Incentive packages to attract industry to do business with hydrogen in Texas will need to be developed.
  
  
• Texas has significant renewable resources in solar, wind and biomass through landfills and agricultural waste.

Next Steps
Based on discussions and conclusions, a draft roadmap is currently under development with input from workshop participants. Completion of the draft roadmap is expected before December 31, 2008.

To learn more and download presentations, please visit: http://www.harc.edu/OurWork/Projects/TexasHydrogen