National Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Codes & Standards Coordinating Committee Teleconference

MEETING DATE: April 5, 2006
TIME: 3:00 - 4:30 PM (EDT)

1.0 PARTICIPANTS
Karen Hall welcomed participants and took the roll call. Russ Hewett was attending the SAE 2006 World Congress in Detroit.

The list of meeting participants is provided in Attachment A.

2.0 REVIEW OF ANTI-TRUST POLICY
Karen reminded USFCC members to review their Anti-Trust Guidelines

Antitrust Guidelines (27Kb PDF)

and

Memo on Antitrust Guidelines (24Kb PDF)

3.0 CORRECTIONS TO MINUTES OF MARCH'S IN-PERSON
MEETING
No Corrections to the Minutes of the March 2006 Meeting were offered. The Minutes were approved, pending any changes to come in to Russ or Karen by 7 April.

4.0 OPPORTUNITY FOR DOE/HQ SUBPROGRAM MANAGER TO
REPORT ON WHAT'S GOING ON AT DOE/HQ
No DOE/HQ representative was present to provide latest information on activities in and FY07 Funding for the Safety, Codes and Standards Subprogram. Therefore, this topic will be taken up at the next meeting.

5.0 PLANNED FOLLOW-ON DISCUSSION REGARDING THE
NATIONAL TEMPLATES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF
CODES AND STANDARDS
One of the major items of discussion at the March In-Person meeting was whether or not modifications should be made to the two national templates:

• Template relating to transportation applications and the fueling infrastructure
• Template relating to portable and stationary applications.

The templates, with changes agreed to at the March meeting and subsequent recommendations, are attached below:

National Templates (133Kb PDF)

An action item from the March meeting was to have follow-on discussion at the April teleconference meeting - to be led by Jim Ohi.

Unfortunately, Jim was participating in meetings at DOE/HQ during the time of the teleconference meeting. Consequently, the additional discussion was not conducted. This item will be taken up at the next meeting.

6.0 REPORT ON HYDROGEN INDUSTRY PANEL ON CODES
(HIPOC) ACTIVITIES
Karen Hall reported on Hydrogen Industry Panel on Codes (HIPOC) Activities. She reminded participants of the purpose of the group, and encouraged everyone who wanted to see changes to the ICC or NFPA codes relating to hydrogen and fuel cells to connect with HIPOC.

7.0 REPORT ON UNITED NATIONS WP.29 MEETING IN MARCH
Unfortunately, Nha Nguyen was not present, so the report on the United Nations WP.29 meeting held in March is to be made at the next meeting.

8.0 REPORT ON IEC/TC105 ACTIVITIES AND DOCUMENTS IN
THE "COMMENTS" STAGE
Kelvin Hecht reported on IEC/TC105 activities and IEC documents in the "Comments" stage. The US TAG was asked to comment on a European standard for small fuel cells by CEN/CENELEC. Kelvin noted there wasn't much information about fuel cells in the standard, which related mainly to boilers and pressure vessels. IEC/TC 105 also asked the US TAG for support of a new Technical Committee (TC) on nanotechnology. The US TAG did not provide much support, and is wary of the necessity of this new TC, since a similar TC already exists in ISO.

Kelvin Hecht's report (75Kb PDF)

9.0 REPORT ON ISOC/TC197 ACTIVITIES AND DOCUMENTS IN
THE "COMMENTS" STAGE
Bob Mauro and Debbie Angerman reported on ISO/TC197 activities and documents in the "Comments" stage. The US TAG voted to approve ISO 17268, which is based on an SAE recommended practice for hydrogen fueling connectors. The US TAG also voted to approve the Hydrogen Generators - Part 1: Safety document with comments. The TAG also voted in favor of ISO 16111-2 - Transportable Gas Storage Devices. There were comments from TC 58 SC 3 that will need to be resolved. The US TAG also sent in comments by request of IEC/TC 105 on the Micro Fuel Cells draft. A vote is due April 15 on Hydrogen Generators - Part 2 - Residential Applications, an activity that was requested by the TC. The US abstained on the vote on systematic review of 13984 Liquid Hydrogen - Land Vehicle Fueling System Interface. Members of the US TAG could not determine whether the document is in use, but agreed that if it were to become used, a revision would be necessary. And finally, the ISO/ TC197 plenary meeting will be held on June 8 at AFNOR, outside Paris, France.

Bob Mauro's report (84Kb PDF)

10.0 UPDATE ON ISO/TC197 WG12 ACTIVITIES
In Jim Ohi's absence, Bob Mauro gave an update on the work of ISO/TC197 WG12 (Hydrogen Fuel-Product Specification). Bob stated that the draft Technical Specification DTS14687-2 had been submitted to the ISO/ TC 197 Secretariat. Discussions regarding the use of references for non-ISO/IEC standards continues.

Draft Technical Specification (225Kb PDF)

11.0 REPORTS ON OTHER INTERNATIONAL ACTIVITIES
Participants called attention to the following meetings:

1. April 10, UNLV - a one-day workshop is being offered on hydrogen safety. The workshop is free, and funded in part by DOE. For information, contact Kelvin Hecht at (303) 384-7463.
   
   
2. The SAE 2006 World Congress has started. Rhodes Stephenson commended the speakers from NFPA, JARI, and NREL for their talks on safety codes and standards, and noted there were many new faces in the audience.
   

12.0 OPPORTUNITY FOR CDOS AND SDOS TO REPORT ON
THEIR ACTIVITIES
No additional reports were given.

13.0 REPORT ON NEW PLANNED USDOT ACTIVITY: "Ad Hoc
Committee on A Regulatory Framework for A Hydrogen
Economy"
Bill Chernicoff was not present to report on the new Ad Hoc Committee and so the report on this activity is deferred until the next meeting.

Information about it can be found at the following web site: http://hydrogen.gov/ad_hoc.html

Information is also accessible from http://hydrogen.gov/news.html.

14.0 DISCUSSION REGARDING POSSIBILITIES FOR NEXT
IN-PERSON MEETING
The objective was to identify the ideal timeframe for the next In-Person meeting and where it might be held. One possibility discussed was the World Hydrogen Energy Conference (WHEC) to be held in June in Lyon, France. However, it was also noted that many participants may not be able to attend due to foreign travel restrictions. Karen agreed to work with the USFCC and NREL to propose some options, to be reported in the May meeting.

15.0 NEXT TELECONFERENCE MEETING
The next meeting of the Coordinating Committee will be a teleconference meeting as follows:

• DATE: May 3rd (First Wednesday)
  
• TIME: 3:00 - 4:30 pm EDT
  2:00 - 3:30 pm CDT
  1:00 - 2:30 pm MDT
  Noon - 1:30 pm PDT
  
• CALL-IN NUMBER AND PASSCODE

• Karen Hall (NHA) (202) 223-5547
  
• Robert Wichert (USFCC) (916) 966-9060
  
• Sondra Ullman (Plug Power) (518) 782-7700 X1469
  
• Russ Hewett (NREL) (303) 384-7463

MEETING PARTICIPANTS
National Hydrogen and Fuel Cells Codes and Standards Coordinating Committee: Members that Participated in the March 2006 Meeting