This report is developed as a part of the project “EMSA study investigating the safety of hydrogen as fuel on ships”. The overall objective of the project is to carry out a structured set of safety assessments and reliability analyses,
delivering a Guidance document addressing ships using hydrogen as fuel. The purpose is to assist the industry and the regulators towards a safe and harmonised deployment of this relevant technology that could demonstrate an important step towards decarbonisation of the sector.
This report analyses hydrogen’s main characteristics to frame which safety hazards, system threats and risks to be considered and mitigated when using hydrogen as ship fuel. Natural gas – for which the IGF Code has put
internationally recognised safety barriers in place to ensure its safe use – is used as a benchmark. Established principles for mitigation and control, and lessons learned from hydrogen accidents are briefly reviewed. Hydrogen
modelling techniques and tools are validated. Statutory regulations and classification rules, standards, and best practices relevant to hydrogen-fuelled ships are reviewed to identify hazards and risks considered and mitigated in
existing rules and regulations.
The aim of this first task in the project is to gather input for drawing up a preliminary table of contents and to establish preliminary goals and functional requirements for a Guidance document for ships using hydrogen as fuel - a live document that will be presented at the end of the project.