One of the key questions we were asked at the Hydrogen Expo was, “What
solutions should we use within a Risk Management plan to ensure the reliability and
safety of our hydrogen infrastructure?”.
The hydrogen economy is booming, but it is taking time for codes and standards to be
developed. So, how do companies that build hydrogen solutions become more informed
and mitigate risk?
We normally present companies with two options. The first is to have conversations
with H2scan’s experts on how our product portfolio can be designed into their
(often) unique application. Knowing how our safety and process sensors fit into
their ecosystem helps customers mitigate hydrogen management risks and known areas
of weakness. The second is referring customers to our broad network of product and
consulting partners that can help them build or enhance their Hydrogen risk
management strategy.
We’re pleased to support our customers’ efforts to proactively identify
potential risks and implement contingency plans in their hydrogen monitoring design
and operating strategies. Investing in supply chain resilience allows us all to
maintain the integrity of our products and reinforces our commitment to delivering –
without interruption — exceptional value and service to the market.
While at these shows, I saw H2scan at the forefront of helping companies monitor and
secure their assets, whether transformer fleet health, battery storage or hydrogen
and industrial process application. We continue to educate the market on the value
of hydrogen sensing and are getting great responses, as demonstrated by the attendee
feedback at the events. They expressed strong interest in safety code compliance,
regulations, OPEX savings, and the need to improve safety and reliability – all of
these needs are well served by H2scan solutions.
Our Head of Sales recently visited a number of smaller Texan Cooperatives and
Municipal utilities and was encouraged by their interest in online Transformer
monitoring solutions. Small utilities don’t have spare or lightly loaded
Transformers, and an unplanned loss’s cost and customer impact are high. That
is exacerbated by the prevailing long lead times. Those utilities are all meticulous
in their Transformer maintenance practices, with annual oil sampling and visual
inspections being the norm. Some take it even further by manually extracting gas
samples from the Nitrogen blanket to measure the Hydrogen content.
All the utilities visited embraced the value of an online monitor that eliminates the
blind spots between samplings. Knowing when and why to roll trucks matters to them,
and online monitoring provides that information. Being affordable, reliable and
easily integrated into existing systems makes H2scan offerings scalable for even the
smallest utilities.
The global utility sector is facing a
transformer shortage that continues to persist with no short-term signs of
normalizing.
Europe, as an example, is facing an energy
grid crisis brought on by a shortage of transformers, as it moves rapidly to
build out infrastructure needed to service the growing number of electric vehicles
and accommodate new wind turbines and solar panels. With this higher demand, the
transformer crisis, not surprisingly, also includes price surges, 18-24 month lead
times and a lack of skilled workers.
The global utility sector is facing a transformer shortage that continues to persist
with no short-term signs of normalizing. Europe, as an example, is facing an energy
grid crisis brought on by a shortage of transformers, as it moves rapidly to build
out infrastructure needed to service the growing number of electric vehicles and
accommodate new wind turbines and solar panels. With this higher demand, the
transformer crisis, not surprisingly, also includes price surges, 18-24 month lead
times and a lack of skilled workers.
In the United States, government funding is attempting to step in to accelerate and
support infrastructure build-out. California, as one example, is becoming the first
to receive
federal funds to create regional networks to produce hydrogen for vehicles,
manufacturing and energy.
Innovation throughout the renewables/hydrogen economy is both rapid and exciting. For
instance, Joby Aviation, Inc. has completed a 523-mile
flight with its hydrogen-electric vertical take-off and landing (VTOL)
demonstrator aircraft. The flight had no emissions besides water and finished with
10% of the remaining hydrogen fuel.
And, closer to the ground, it appears that hydrogen may soon find a way into boosting
antioxidants in agriculture, namely tomatoes. The end result is enhanced
crop quality and health benefits, along with crop resilience and productivity.
Data center construction is accelerating in lockstep with renewable expansion, as
well as projected processing requirements to support emerging AI applications. A 200MW
data center is planned for 2025 construction outside Abilene, TX. Another
example of the growing construction of data centers to handle the growing needs of
AI workloads, the center was designed to enable the largest cluster of GPUs in the
world.
H2scan announced the intrinsically
safe (IS) Gen 5 Hydrogen Analyzer Series at the Hydrogen Technology Expo. The IS Gen
5 is a family of self-calibrating, solid-state sensors designed for hazardous
location applications and offers:
Read the press release here
and check out the HY-OPTIMA
5330 Analyzer family and the HY-ALERTA
5320 Area
Monitor.
As noted in our first story above in
Hydrogen Economy on The Move, there’s a looming energy grid crisis created by
a shortage of transformers. Now is the time to take action to extend the life of
your transformer fleet with improvements in your hydrogen monitoring strategy. Read
how in our white paper, Early
Detection
Solutions Are Now a Must with Today’s Aging and Compromised Energy
Grid.
