President Kim Hyung-keun of Korea Gas Safety Corp. (KGS).

Korea Gas Safety Corp. (KGS) has stepped up measures to ensure the safety of hydrogen facilities and to boost the hydrogen economy.

KGS conducted a safety inspection at 733 hydrogen production, storage/transportation, and utilization facilities, and 551 transportation vehicles between May and July. The corporation is providing support for the enactment of the Hydrogen Safety Act and the establishment of a hydrogen safety roadmap, to be announced in December.

KGS is working on the development of safety technologies involving a whole cycle ranging from hydrogen production to storage and utilization and institutional research. President Kim Hyung-keun disclosed these and other policies during a parliamentary audit of the corporation by the National Assembly Trade, Industry, Energy, SMEs and Startups Committee on Oct. 14.

Eleven companies were designated as a “smart gas control” project to verify the world’s first mobile control/shutoff technology in the gas equipment sector at Chungcheongbuk-do’s first regulation-free zone. KGS is offering support for the development of open innovation technologies via an “open lab” among industry, academic and research circles.

KGS has established a “safety management innovation strategy” designed to reduce gas accidents by 20 percent. Forty-four innovative tasks have been explored through inside and outside idea contests.

Thanks to the strategy, the number of gas accidents that took place in the first eight months of this year stood at 83, a 14.4 percent decrease from the same period last year, which saw the occurrence of 97 gas-related accidents.

A total of 62 tasks have been accomplished successfully during the first national gas safety management master plan between 2015 and 2019. The 2nd national gas safety management master plan between 2020 and 2024 is to be established this year.

The corporation is focusing on steps to prevent deaths, caused by gas boiler carbon dioxide poising. An emergency inspection was conducted to find out the safety of 419,000 gas boilers. KGS is seeking to make it mandatory to have carbon dioxide warning gadgets in place.

The number of deaths, caused by gas boiler carbon dioxide poising that took place in the first eight months of this year stood at 4, a 50 percent drop from the same period last year. KGS has established steps to improvement safety to prevent butane gas explosions. To this end, the corporation expanded the supply of safety devices from 11 percent in 2018 to 20 percent this year.

KGS has ramp up steps to ensure the safety of old, high-pressure city gas pipelines using the City-gas Pipeline Management System (CPMS), which is designed to pinpoint priority points of undergoing safety diagnosis.

Korea Integrity Management Program, an advance self-gas management system, which made its debut in 2018, has been expanded to cover pipelines in nine areas, standing 274 km in length. The corporation is seeking to introduce a regime to strengthen the safety of long-standing oil pipelines in urban districts.

KGS President Kim said, “Gas has established itself as a major public fuel since 99 percent of the nation’s population use it, so significance of safety management is getting more.” The corporation is devoting itself to raising the nation’s gas safety management to the world’s No. 1 levels by reducing gas accidents through safety management innovation as a national gas safety management agency, President Kim said.

A KGS crew member inspect the safety of a gas safety system. (Photos: KGS)