Working safely together on the hydrogen network
Over the next few years, we at Hynetwork will build the hydrogen network in the Netherlands. It will be a mammoth task, totalling some 10 million working hours. Statistics tell us that with this number of working hours, we can expect very serious incidents, even ones with fatal consequences. This is unacceptable, which means doing nothing is not an option. That’s why we, as the commissioning authority, will ensure that we have clear and unambiguous working agreements with all our partners. Marja Post, HSE lead for the Hydrogen Network Netherlands, explains.
‘Cooperation in the chain is extremely important. We involve our partners at an early stage to help think about how we can do this job safely. That means how can we do it without having negative effects on the health of employees or local residents, or an impact on the environment. Together, we are working on uniform agreements on Health, Safety and Environment (HSE). So in the coming years, it won’t matter whether you are working on a construction project from partner A in Zeeland or with partner B in Groningen; the fundamentals of safe work practices will be the same everywhere.’
What do these agreements involve?
‘We are now agreeing on general activities. For example, what does a daily meeting to start the day look like? Or a joint sampling of work pits? What are the agreements about heavy transport on and around the worksite? And the agreements about hoisting/lifting? The list goes on and on. With these agreements, I think we address 70-80% of the risks involved in the work.’
‘If there are specific risks at a worksite, we discover them using a Risk Inventory & Evaluation in the design phase. This is where we look at the routes and environmental factors and associated risks for each sub-project. We then communicate these to the partners in an H&S design plan. They take measures to deal with those specific risks and include them, in addition to the uniform agreements, in their H&S plan and project introduction.’
At present, we have already started the first-ever hydrogen network construction in Rotterdam, and we are doing exploratory work in the north of the Netherlands. We are now testing the uniform agreements there in practice. In this way, we are learning from experience about what we conceived on paper. On all sides, we are refining the agreements or providing some clarifying information. We are doing all this in consultation with the partners to ultimately arrive at a clear, safe approach with widespread support.
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