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European Integrated Hydrogen Project (EIHP) - Phases 1 & 2 Vehicle Activities
by Paul Adams, Volvo Technological Development Corp.
EIHP was conceived in the late 1990’s to fulfil the need for harmonised legal requirements within Europe to assist the development and introduction of hydrogen powered vehicles. The aim of the project was to avoid the situation that had arisen with the development of natural gas vehicles (NGV). Different technical solutions had to be developed for NGV to fulfil the differing legal requirements of different markets leading to unnecessary product development costs. For some issues, standards rather than legal requirements are essential, e.g. the refuelling interface. However, there is also the possibility of differing standards. The undesirable situation for legal requirements and standards is shown in Figure1. Legal requirements are different to standards in that they are legally binding and often have a much slower amendment process that takes place through different bodies. Without legal requirements for the approval of hydrogen components and vehicles, the time and cost required to gain the approval to register a vehicle for use is substantially increased. Additionally, without legal requirements in Europe (which have to be fulfilled by all manufacturers wishing to sell vehicles in Europe), there is uncertainty as to whether or not approval will be given. The timescale required for the introduction of harmonised legal requirements means that they must be developed well in advance of the anticipated introduction of production series vehicles.
Within Europe, legal requirements are known as regulations or directives depending on their source. European and some non-European countries, require an authority together with a technical service undertaking approval testing, to assess compliance of components and the vehicle with the legal requirements. The process is known as type approval. In contrast North America uses the self-certification process.
In 1998 partial EU funding was secured for a 10-partner project involving many major multi-national organizations. The follow up 3 year EIHP2 project (to be completed early in 2004), has an expanded partnership of 20, including major North American based companies and 5 major vehicle manufacturers. The project now extends to refuelling infrastructure and the vehicle interface (to be covered by a subsequent article).
Initially, a survey was undertaken of legal requirements in various European countries, the USA and Japan. No requirements were identified at that time directly relating to the use of hydrogen on-board vehicles. It was decided to develop proposals for legal requirements based on the framework of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Working Party 29 (ECE WP29) as it is recognised as the World Forum for the Harmonisation Of Vehicle Regulations, details can be found at http://www.unece.org/trans/main/welcwp29.htm. The EIHP proposals were initially developed as the basis of future ECE Regulations under the “1958 Agreement” with Contracting Parties including most European countries, Australia, Japan and South Africa. Legal requirements under the framework of the 1958 Agreement are based on the type approval process and therefore cannot be applied within North America. Since the initial phase of the project, a new framework has been developed by ECE WP29 to allow the development of truly global legal requirements, based on the “1998 Agreement”. Contracting Parties to the 1998 Agreement include most European countries, Canada, China, Japan, Korea, South Africa and the USA. Economic Commission for Europe is now a misleading name in the context of ECE WP29 as it is acknowledged throughout the world as a global rather than European activity. The new concept called Global Technical Regulations (GTR) are essentially technical requirements, thus allowing the use of different approval processes and eliminating the major obstacle to global harmonisation of legal requirements for vehicles. A goal of EIHP2 is to assist the development of GTR for hydrogen vehicles. The possibility of GTR allows the more desirable framework for the legal requirements and standards essential for hydrogen vehicles shown in Figure 2. Legal requirements should be based on GTR and where standards are necessary they should be focussed through the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) or International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) as appropriate.
Two proposals were developed, one for gaseous hydrogen systems and one for liquid hydrogen systems. The proposals are applicable to the hydrogen components and their installation within the vehicle, but exclude the propulsion system or auxiliary power unit. A key aim was to avoid restricting innovative or unforeseen technical advances by adopting performance based requirements. The EIHP proposals have been widely distributed for comments at various stages, many of which were incorporated into subsequent versions of the proposals. The EIHP proposals were presented to the German Ministry of Transport with the request that they be presented to ECE WP29 for their adoption as regulations. In March 2001 the German Ministry of Transport presented the EIHP proposals to ECE WP29. Subsequently the proposals were presented to the ECE WP29 Working Party on Pollution And Energy (GRPE). The GRPE established an Ad-hoc Working Group (AWG) on Hydrogen Vehicle Storage Systems to oversee the further development of the proposals with the ultimate aim of a GTR. The GRPE AWG includes ISO representatives and is open to delegates from all Contracting Parties to the ECE Agreements including North America. The EIHP proposals to the GRPE AWG are Revision 9 for gaseous hydrogen and Revision 11 for liquid hydrogen.
EIHP was conceived to assist the introduction of safe and environmentally friendly hydrogen vehicles by reducing unnecessary development costs for related component and vehicle manufacturing industries throughout the world. EIHP is a short-term complementary activity to organisations such as ISO providing a mechanism for direct industry research and input to the development of legal requirements and to established standardisation activities, to fulfil a specific and real need. It actively cooperates with ISO, IEC, SAE, etc. through the recently created Global Cooperation Group.
Further details of EIHP and its proposals can be found at www.eihp.org which also hosts the website for the GRPE AWG.
For further information contact Paul Adams at paul.adams@volvo.com.
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