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Although hydrogen refueling stations (HRSs) are becoming widespread across Japan and are essential for the operation of fuel cell vehicles, they present potential hazards. A large number of accidents such as explosions or fires have been reported, rendering it necessary to conduct a number of qualitative and quantitative risk assessments for HRSs. Current safety codes and technical standards related to Japanese HRSs have been established based on the results of a qualitative risk assessment and quantitative effectiveness validation of safety measures over ten years ago. In the last decade, there has been much development in the technologies of the components or facilities used in domestic HRSs and much operational experience as well as knowledge to use hydrogen in HRSs safely have been gained through years of commercial operation. The purpose of the present study is to conduct a quantitative risk assessment (QRA) of the latest HRS model representing Japanese HRSs with the most current information and to identify the most significant scenarios that pose the greatest risks to the physical surroundings in the HRS model. The results of the QRA show that the risk contours of 10−3 and 10−4 per year were confined within the HRS boundaries, whereas the risk contours of 10−5 and 10−6 per year are still present outside the HRS. Comparing the breakdown of the individual risks (IRs) at the risk ranking points, we conclude that the risk of jet fire demonstrates the highest contribution to the risks at all of the risk ranking points and outside the station. To reduce these risks and confine the risk contour of 10−6 per year within the HRS boundaries, it is necessary to consider risk mitigation measures for jet fires.

In the last couple of decades, there has been a growing concern in what effects fossil fuels are having on the environment, resulting in governments and governing organizations issuing stringent emission standards in an effort to curve their environmental damage. To meet these new standards, the transportation industry has been conducting research into alternative fuels, such as hydrogen, but one critical problem utilizing hydrogen is that there is almost no infrastructure. A network of hydrogen refueling stations similar to modern gasoline stations will be required to be constructed to meet future demand. The hydrogen refueling station model was created to aid in designing hydrogen facilities, thus accelerating their development while reducing design cost. A model was created using Simulink consisting of an electrolyzer that generates hydrogen, a compressor, numerous storage tanks, a dispensing unit that transfers hydrogen, and a vehicle component that consumes hydrogen fuel. The model was validated using data from existing hydrogen refueling stations, and the data obtained from testing the previous version of the hydrogen refueling station model to determine model accuracy and if the model has improved. The model has demonstrated that it can produce reasonable results for a station's performance and has improved compared to the previous version.

The future success of fuel cell electric vehicles requires a corresponding infrastructure. In this study, two different refueling station concepts for fuel cell passenger cars with 70 MPa technology were evaluated energetically. In the first option, the input of the refueling station is gaseous hydrogen which is compressed to final pressure, remaining in gaseous state. In the second option, the input is liquid hydrogen which is cryo-compressed directly from the liquid phase to the target pressure. In the first case, the target temperature of −33 °C to −40 °C [1] is achieved by cooling down. In the second option, gaseous deep-cold hydrogen coming from the pump is heated up to target temperature. A dynamic simulation model considering real gas behavior to evaluate both types of fueling stations from an energetic perspective was created. The dynamic model allows the simulation of boil-off losses (liquid stations) and standby energy losses caused by the precooling system (gaseous station) dependent on fueling profiles. The functionality of the model was demonstrated with a sequence of three refueling processes within a short time period (high station utilization). The liquid station consumed 0.37 kWh/kg compared to 2.43 kWh/kg of the gaseous station. Rough estimations indicated that the energy consumption of the entire pathway is higher for liquid hydrogen. The analysis showed the high influence of the high-pressure storage system design on the energy consumption of the station. For future research work the refueling station model can be applied to analyze the energy consumption dependent on factors like utilization, component sizing and ambient temperature.