In 2003 the US Department of Energy (DOE) initiated a project to coordinate the development of a national template of hydrogen codes and standards for both vehicular and stationary applications. The process consisted of an initial evaluation to determine where there were gaps in the existing hydrogen codes and standards and the codes and standards required to fill these gaps. These codes and standards were to be developed by several Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). This effort to develop codes and standards has progressed from a position in 2003 when there were relatively few codes and standards that directly addressed hydrogen technology applications to the position at the end of 2008 where requirements to permit hydrogen technologies have been implemented in primary adopted codes- building and fire codes, in hydrogen specific codes such as National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 52, NFPA 55, and NFPA 853, and in many of the hydrogen specific component standards that are referenced primarily in the NFPA codes and standards. This paper describes the three levels of codes and standards that address hydrogen technologies for the built environment:

Level 1. Primary adopted building and fire codes
Level 2. Hydrogen specific codes and standards references in primary adopted code
Level 3. Hydrogen specific component standards referenced in hydrogen specific codes
This paper also describes the progress to date in populating these three levels with the required hydrogen codes and standards. The first two levels are essentially complete and are undergoing refinement and routine revision. Level 3, the hydrogen specific component standards, is the furthest from having first edition documents that address requirements for a hydrogen system component.

The DOE is focusing much of their codes and standards development efforts on these hydrogen specific component standards with the expectation that a first edition of most of these standards will be issued by 2010