Abstract
Aim: The aim of this paper is to present safety issues, including fire protection at Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) fueling stations, on the example of the technical standard developed under the auspices of The Chamber of the Natural Gas Industry ST-IGG 1601:2012 relating to the design, construction and operation of CNG stations in Poland.
Introduction: There are nearly thirty CNG filling stations in Poland. But so far, technical standards concerning requirements for this kind of objects haven´t been developed. To organize the requirements in this regard and facilitate appropriate services in designing, constructing, operating and supervising the aforementioned objects, the decision to develop the above-mentioned standard (finally adopted by the Committee of Technical Standard of The Chamber of the Natural Gas Industry in December 2012) was made. It should be emphasized that this is the first document in Poland on the discussed issues in a complex way. While developing the standard Czech and German regulations in this field and draft of ISO standard concerning discussed topic were used and adapted to technical, organizational and formal conditions of our country. In order to achieve the objective of the article described in the first section, information about the current state and development of the CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) market in Poland was provided. Then the authors presented some aspects of the standard, including these related to: the assessment of the risk of explosion and fire, the choice of location, station area arrangements, fuel dispensing devices, lightning protection, shock protection, overcurrent and overvoltage protection and protection against static electricity.
Conclusions: Based on the content of the standard and other reference documents mentioned in that standard, including legislation related to fire protection, it is possible to design, construct and operate the stations for refueling vehicles with compressed natural gas properly. Therefore, it seems reasonable to take action on their dissemination among developers, users and people involved in the fire protection of buildings.
Relevance in practice: The practical importance of discussed issues follows directly from the content of formulated above conclusions, where the presented standard may be seen as a tool to be used directly in the design, construction and operation of CNG stations.
Keywords: CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), CNG fueling station, technical standard, designing, construction, operating