Hydrogen Guidelines

Reducing room for interpretation and supporting planning and investment certainty

As the hydrogen economy takes off, planners, network operators and public authorities are facing technical and regulatory challenges. Josephine Glandien of the DBI Group, project manager for PORTAL GREEN II, explains how practical guidelines and an interactive feed-in map are set to simplify planning processes in future.

Why are planning, authorisation and implementation currently a major bottleneck in the roll-out of the hydrogen economy? Where do the most common issues arise in authorisation and planning processes for hydrogen infrastructure?

We have found that the obstacles to the roll-out of hydrogen lie less in technical expertise. Thanks to intensive research, we have already made significant progress in this area. The challenges stem more from the complex, multi-stage planning and approval procedures, a lack of standardisation and experience, as well as existing safety concerns.

Hydrogen pipelines are subject to many different laws and regulations. These include, for example, water law, species and nature conservation, air pollution control legislation, and mining law in relation to underground storage facilities. Added to this is the lack of a uniform federal framework, which further complicates the procedures and leaves room for interpretation. Depending on the circumstances, decisions are therefore often made on a case-by-case basis.

One conclusion we drew from developing these guidelines was that there is not always a single, one-size-fits-all approach. This often places project developers and authorities in a difficult position, as both sides lack planning certainty. With these guidelines, we have therefore sought to create a form of harmonisation and guidance that can support a more uniform approach across Germany.

How does PORTAL GREEN II differ from its predecessor project?

The focus of Portal Green was on power-to-gas plants. With Portal Green II, we have therefore broadened the focus from production to the transport and distribution of hydrogen in order to examine the next steps in the hydrogen value chain. In doing so, we have considered both the conversion of existing gas pipelines and the construction of new hydrogen pipelines.

Naturally, we have also drawn increasingly on experience gained from research projects into hydrogen. This was not possible to the same extent in our previous project. Nor was the technical assessment of hydrogen suitability a major issue at that time.

We were particularly pleased by the keen interest shown by staff from public authorities in collaborating with us and sharing their experience. In this way, as in the first project, we produced one regulatory and one technical guide.

Over the course of both projects, we have observed significant market development and a marked increase in acceptance of hydrogen technologies and their potential. We also timed our work very well. During the first year of the project, approval was granted for the hydrogen core network. This provided a further major boost to our work.

You have developed several guidance documents as part of the project. What specific issues do these address for planners, network operators and planning authorities?

Essentially, all five guidance documents are designed to reduce the scope for interpretation among stakeholders and to support planning and investment certainty. In this way, we are helping to ensure that hydrogen projects can be implemented more quickly and efficiently.

Firstly, we have developed clear decision trees for planners and network operators to use as a guide. These answer key questions, particularly regarding planning permission for new construction and for structured conversion processes. In other words: how can a conversion be carried out, what factors must be taken into account, what interfaces exist, and what different responsibilities need to be considered? The guidelines are quite comprehensive because there are numerous requirements in the hydrogen sector that must be taken into account, for example in the areas of explosion protection, materials assessment, safety requirements, and nature and water conservation.

With these guides, we also aimed to highlight gaps in knowledge and clarify where there is still scope for improvement. The fact is, however, that officials in this field often lack experience with hydrogen. Much of the existing guidance is aimed primarily at the technical level rather than the regulatory side. Until now, there has been no guidance tailored specifically to this group of people. We also wanted to change that with our guides.

In addition, we have developed a guide for technical building services involving small-scale hydrogen systems to provide greater clarity on the procedures in this area too. This focuses in particular on testing requirements and the regulatory requirements that must be observed to ensure the safety of on-site consumption systems.

How did network operators, authorities and industry partners contribute to the guidelines – and how did this affect the content?

Ultimately, planners, network operators and authorities all work with the same set of guidelines. However, they utilise different elements of these guidelines. This ensures consistency across all stages of the process.

Dialogue with the relevant stakeholders was very important to us. For this reason, we involved practitioners very closely in Portal Green II, for example through a project advisory group and the organisation of workshops. Many grid operators, amongst others, were also involved. This helped us to repeatedly obtain feedback on the guidelines from practitioners during the development process and to continuously refine them.

Through this collaboration, we were able to test whether the guidelines are genuinely practical and comprehensible. This is particularly important with regard to authorisation processes, as there are differences in legal and technical terminology that the guidelines are intended to bridge. Through feedback sessions, we were able to ensure that the necessary questions were addressed and answered for all target groups.

What role does the H₂ feed-in map play in ensuring transparency and planning certainty? Who is already using it?

The map shows hydrogen facilities that are under construction and those already in operation. It was very important to us that the map only depicts financially secure projects that have reached a Final Investment Decision (FID) and will therefore actually be implemented. This also sets it apart from other maps of this kind. The added value lies in the fact that users can see where and how much hydrogen is actually being produced and fed into the grid, and where additional capacity will be added in the future. This is particularly relevant for grid operators. But it is also helpful for project developers to know, when planning new projects, where facilities are already located.

What feedback have you received from the field regarding the project results?

Very positive. Around 400 people attended our closing event alone, at which the guidelines were presented. Following the presentation of the results, there was high demand for the guidelines, both from staff at public authorities and from grid operators. The feedback was that, in practice, the guidelines help to answer typical questions more quickly during the planning and approval process, as well as during construction and operation.

Were there any ‘aha’ moments?

One ‘aha’ moment was the realisation that the regulatory approval procedures for hydrogen infrastructure are certainly manageable if tackled in a structured manner and at an early stage; however, there are still many uncertainties and questions of interpretation. However, we assume that this will become less of an issue as experience grows and the processes are carried out more frequently. At present, the pressure to avoid making mistakes regarding safety or nature conservation is often still the main focus.

Another insight was that planning and approval processes for converting natural gas pipelines to hydrogen are often simpler and less complicated than for new construction, even though the construction of new hydrogen pipelines does not differ significantly from that of conventional pipelines.

Would you say that there is still a great deal of caution amongst all stakeholders?

Yes, because there are so many areas that need to be covered, ranging from species conservation to explosion protection and water protection. Precisely because we are still in the early stages of large-scale hydrogen infrastructure, safety aspects are being scrutinised particularly closely from all sides. This is often a major challenge, particularly for smaller network operators, because this kind of pioneering work requires appropriate human resources. These experiences have been incorporated into our project.

How are the findings now being incorporated into regulations, standards or other processes?

With our guidelines, we act as a sort of bridge between research, regulation and practice. The DVGW is incorporating the content into its hydrogen regulations as ‘Gas Information’. This means the findings are fed directly into the further development of technical regulations and are available to the professional community as guidance.

Furthermore, the guidelines serve as a basis for further coordination processes between authorities, network operators and planners. They help to develop a common understanding and gradually harmonise existing approaches.

The results have also been distributed to around 8,000 relevant stakeholders, ensuring they are widely adopted in practice and can be immediately applied and further developed there.

Your project has now come to an end; do you have plans to continue working on PORTAL GREEN 2?

We would like to build on the successful concept of Portal Green in the future. The targeted exchange of ideas and the close involvement of all relevant stakeholders have created significant added value, which we intend to continue utilising.

We are currently in discussions with various grid operators to find out how we can provide targeted support through research.

At the DBI, we have built up extensive expertise over recent years, both on the technical side – for example, in the areas of hydrogen suitability testing and network calculations – and in the field of planning permission and regulatory matters. Our aim is to be able to offer as comprehensive a package as possible for the planning of hydrogen infrastructure and thereby support specific implementation projects.

In terms of content, our considerations for future projects are focused in particular on underground hydrogen storage. Furthermore, we also see a need for the development of a CO₂ infrastructure, for example through the creation of regulatory and technical guidelines similar to those for the Portal Green projects.

Looking ahead to the coming years: where is there still a need for research or action to ensure that hydrogen infrastructure becomes a reality more quickly?

We have already begun to encourage the harmonisation of regulatory practices through this project. A wide range of areas for optimisation have been identified and recommendations for action put forward. Some developments have already been set in motion, for example through the Hydrogen Acceleration Act.

Nevertheless, there remains scope for improvement, particularly in the area of digitalisation, with regard to clear requirements, shorter deadlines, greater standardisation, model applications and uniform points of contact within the authorities.

At the technical level, the focus is less on fundamental feasibility and more on further specification and standardisation. This includes, for example, issues relating to the suitability of existing infrastructure for hydrogen, standardised testing and verification procedures, and experience gained from the operation and conversion of networks. In addition, we also see a need for further research and clarification regarding underground hydrogen storage.

The interview was conducted by Mareike Lenzen from the Research Communications Department at Project Management Jülich.