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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Fire in a hydrogen storage facility

Event

Event ID
748
Quality
Description

Employees were refilling a rack of 15 hydrogen cylinders that were connected together on a steel pallet with railings.
A leak developed at a valve and the pressurized hydrogen ignited. Operations activated a deluge sprinkler system, which turned off the compressor that was pumping in hydrogen.
The fire was contained by the sprinkler system as the hydrogen pressure bled off.

There were no injuries.

Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
fire
Macro-region
North America
Country
United States
Date
Component involved
valve (generic)
Failure mode
leak & ignition
Initiating cause
unknown
Root causes
Unknown
Date entry in HIAD
01/01/2020

Facility

Application
Hydrogen stationary storage
Sub-application
GH2 storage
Hydrogen supply chain stage
All components affected

hydrogen cylinders, rack, compressor, sprinkler

Process temperature range [C]
ambient temperature (-50°C to +50°C)
Location type
Unknown
Location
populated area
Operational condition
Pre-event occurrences

A leak developed at a valve of a hydrogen cylinder during filling. It is assumed that this action was part of the normal operation.

Emergency & Consequences

Number of fatalities
0
Number of injured persons
0
Emergency action

The activation of the safety deluge sprinkler system turned off the hydrogen compressor and contained the fire till the hydrogen pressure bled off.

Lesson Learnt

Lesson Learnt

A plausible, logic generic is the need of proper inspection and maintenance, and the regular improvement of the related procedure.
In similar accidents, one of the recommendations was the installation of control valve on each of the cylinders in the rack. However, in this case it seems that the accidents occurred when filling the cylinders, and the description does not clarify where he hydrogen feeding the fire was coming from: from the cylinders of form the compressor of from both?

In-depth data

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Release temperature [°C]
25
Probable IGNITION SOURCE

References

Sources categories
OHSA
Reference & weblink