The assessment of risk caused by domino effect in quantitative area risk analysis.

Assessment of domino effect: State of the art and research Needs

A software procedure was developed for the quantitative assessment of domino effect The procedure was based on a systematic methodology for the identification of domino scenarios and for the assessment of consequences and expected frequencies of the escalation events A geographical information system (GIS) platform was interfaced to the domino assessment software The implementation of plant lay-out data to the GIS allowed the automatic identification of the possible targets of escalation effects by the software procedure, and a straightforward calculation of the contribution to individual and societal risk indexes caused by the possible domino scenarios The procedure was applied to the analysis of several case-studies based on actual plant lay-outs The results evidenced that the approach allows the quantitative assessment of risk caused by escalation events with a limited additional effort with respect to that required by a conventional QRA The use of a GIS-based software was a key element in the limitation of the effort required for the quantitative assessment of domino scenarios Moreover, the results of the case-studies pointed out that the estimation of risk increase due to domino events is an important tool for an effective assessment and control of industrial risk in chemical and process plants

Quantitative assessment of domino scenarios by a GIS-based software tool

Domino effects may cause more severe accident scenarios in the chemical and process industries. An introduction is given to the context and state of the art of technical and scientific knowledge concerning accident scenarios where domino effect(s) took place, as well as to European regulations on the subject. The specific context of chemical clusters with respect to safety and security assessment when dealing with domino scenarios is also introduced.

Historical Background and State of the Art on Domino Effect Assessment

Now in Russian Federation and other countries large-scale oil terminals (volume of one tank exceeds 100 000 m 3 , total volume of tanks exceeds 300 000 m 3 ) are designed and constructed. Therefore fire safety of such objects becomes a very important task, solution of which is hardly possible without detail fire risk assessment. This study is aimed to a solution of this problem. Potential, individual and social risks were calculated. The potential risk was defined as a frequency of occurrence of hazardous factors of fires and explosions in a given point of space (the so-called risk contours). The individual risk was defined as a frequency of injuring a given person by hazardous factors of fires and explosions. Time of presence of this person in hazardous zones (near the hazardous installation) is taken into account during calculations of the individual risk. Social risk was defined as a dependence of frequency of injuring a given number of people by hazardous factors of fires and explosions on this number. In practice the social risk is usually determined on injuring not less than 10 people. The oil terminal under consideration includes the following main parts: crude oil storage consisting of three tanks of volume 100 000 m 3 each, input crude oil pipeline of diameter 0.6 m, crude oil pumps, output crude oil pipeline of diameter 0.8 m, auxiliary buildings and facilities. The following main scenarios of tank fires have been considered: rim seal fire, pool fire on a surface of a floating roof, pool fire on a total cross-section surface of the tank, pool fire in a dyke, explosions in closed or semiclosed volumes. Fires and explosions in other parts of the terminal are also taken into account. Effects of escalation of accidents are considered. Risk contours have been calculated both for the territory of the terminal and for the neighbouring space. The potential risk for the storage zone is near 10 −4 –10 −5  year −1 , and at a distance 500 m from the terminal the potential risk values do not exceed 10 −6  year −1 . The values of the individual risk for various categories of workers are in the range of 10 −5 –10 −6  year −1 . Because of low number of the workers on the terminal and large distances to towns and villages the social risk value is negligible. These risk values are consistent with practice of the best oil companies, and fire hazard level of the terminal can be accepted as tolerable.

Fire and explosion risk assessment for large-scale oil export terminal

Loss-of-containment events on offshore installations can lead to complex escalation effects, especially in congested modules, where the close proximity of processing equipment and control systems creates the potential for very many different escalation paths. Conventional risk analysis tools are not well suited to deriving and evaluating the large number of possibilities, relying on the risk analyst to devise and quantify a ‘representative’ set of scenarios. The danger is that the ‘representative’ scenarios lack realism, may be insufficiently detailed to support upgrade decisions, and tend towards ‘generic’ risk analysis. A novel computer simulation technique has therefore been developed which starts from a list of initiating loss-of-containment events and utilizes physical rule sets and consequence models to generate consistent and detailed accident scenarios from a basic platform description, comprising a collection of equipment items, structural elements and protective systems. The program has proved stable on application to a variety of offshore installations, including simple gas platforms, a typical deep sea oil and gas platform, and a semi-submersible production vessel. It eliminates the manual drafting and analysis of event trees, which is very laborious even when aided by interactive computer tools; and, because the risk model comprises factual information, rather than abstract concepts, it is much more accessible and amenable to scrutiny by discipline engineers, allowing operators to derive and maintain a genuinely ‘living’ quantitative risk assessment.

Quantification of escalation effects in offshore quantitative risk assessment

The European Union has the ambition to be the first carbonneutral continent by 2050. To fulfil this objective and integrate into the grid the large amount of power from solar and wind, Europe can rely upon the high storage and flexible capacity of hydropower. Thus, new reservoirs and innovative use of current reservoirs will be needed to provide an effective contribution to this unprecedented European Green Deal. The project Hydropower Europe, funded by the H2020 research programme, is tasked with identifying innovative uses of reservoirs and prioritizing the associated innovation actions targeting an energy system with high flexibility and renewable share. The project deliverables are a Research and Innovation Agenda (RIA) listing the top strategic research and innovation directions and a Strategic Industry Roadmap (SIR) addressing non-technical actions and requests for the hydropower sector. This paper describes the vision of the project: “Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition”. In this paper (Part I), the Green Deal and the role of hydropower are outlined and discussed. In Part II of the paper, after highlighting the complex environment that hydropower is situated within in Europe, and the challenges of biodiversity, the main innovation and research directions (extracted from the RIA) and the main steps for combining multipurpose hydropower, in a sustainable, efficient and cost-effective manner (extracted from the SIR), are presented.

Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition within the European Green Deal Part I: urgency of the Green Deal and the role of Hydropower

Mr Schleker, European Commissioner for Research, underlined the importance of innovative technologies to achieve the objectives of the Paris Agreement through economically viable and sustainable hydropower: digitalisation, flexibility, modernisation and ecological continuity. The calls for hydropower have increased from 10 to 40 million euros between the Framework Programme 7 and Horizon 2020. The 2021–2027 calls involve equipment for hidden hydropower, digitalisation of power plants and of hybridisation, modelling of energy systems, and innovations in storage, in its integration into the grid or in off-grid applications. Professor Anton Schleiss from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) presented the vision developed by HYDROPOWER EUROPE that puts hydropower back at the centre of the energy transition through its capacities to increase production flexibility, long-term storage, innovative pumped storage solutions, production through multi-purpose schemes and “hidden” hydropower, for which he presented a catalogue of solutions. The uprating potential in existing hydropower schemes could increase Europe’s 2020 generation by the additional energy storage achievable by reservoir interconnection and coordinated operation has been estimated as 169 TWh. The success of new projects lies in the application of a scientific methodology in the form of a multidisciplinary approach to complex systems, aiming at a win–win solution for all stakeholders. Alex Campbell from International Hydropower Association (IHA) was clear: “we need to decarbonise electricity if we are to stop climate change”. In the International Renewable Energy Association (IRENA) scenario, 850 GW of hydropower is needed to limit warming to below 2°C in 2050, and 1200 GW to limit it below 1.5°C. The problem is that the IHA can only see 548 GW of planned projects, hence 300 GW of projects are missing! A small part of this shortfall could be found in the retrofit of the 600 GW of existing installed capacity. Apart from new projects, another part can come from increased flexibility of operation, as hydropower is “the largest source of flexible electricity generation”, with 1730 TWh or 17% of the world’s production.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/27678490.2022.2058829?needAccess=true

Hydropower, a catalyst for energy transition in Europe

The European Union has the ambition to be the first carbonneutral continent by 2050. To fulfil this objective and integrate into the grid the large amount of power from solar and wind, Europe can rely upon the high storage and flexible capacity of hydropower. Thus, new reservoirs and innovative use of current reservoirs will be needed to provide an effective contribution to this unprecedented European Green Deal. The project Hydropower Europe, funded by the H2020 research programme, is tasked with identifying innovative uses of reservoirs and prioritizing the associated innovation actions targeting an energy system with high flexibility and renewable share. The project deliverables are a Research and Innovation Agenda (RIA) listing the top strategic research and innovation directions and a Strategic Industry Roadmap (SIR) addressing non-technical actions and requests for the hydropower sector. This paper describes the vision of the project: “Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition”. In Part I of this paper, the Green Deal and the role of hydropower were outlined and discussed. In this Part II, after highlighting the complex environment for hydropower in Europe, and the challenges of biodiversity, the main innovation and research directions extracted from the RIA and the main steps of the SIR for combining multipurpose hydropower, in a sustainable, efficient and cost-effective manner, are presented.

Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition within the European Green Deal Part II: The complex environment for hydropower, biodiversity challenges and the main innovation and research directions

Mark Morris

Papers

Quantification of escalation effects in offshore quantitative risk assessment

Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition within the European Green Deal Part I: urgency of the Green Deal and the role of Hydropower

Hydropower, a catalyst for energy transition in Europe

Hydropower as a catalyst for the energy transition within the European Green Deal Part II: The complex environment for hydropower, biodiversity challenges and the main innovation and research directions