Proceedings of the
35th European Safety and Reliability Conference (ESREL2025) and
the 33rd Society for Risk Analysis Europe Conference (SRA-E 2025)
15 – 19 June 2025, Stavanger, Norway

Preliminary Hazard Analysis for Hydrogen Production by Coupled High Temperature Electrolysis Facilities and Nuclear Power Plants

Stefano Marchetti1,a, Francesco Di Maio1,b, Samantha E. Wismer2,d, Katrina M. Groth2,e and Enrico Zio1,3,c

1Energy Department, Politecnico di Milano, Milano 20156, Italy.

2Systems Risk and Reliability (SyRRA) Lab, Center for Risk and Reliability, Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742, MD, USA.

3MINES Paris-PSL, Centre de Recherche sur les Risques et les Crises (CRC), Sophia Antipolis, France.

ABSTRACT

Coupling of High Temperature Electrolysis Facilities (HTEFs) and Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs) is a promising solution for large-scale clean hydrogen production. A preliminary hazards analysis of the system of systems made of HTEF and NPP is presented with reference to a preliminary design in which steam and electricity are supplied by the NPP to the HTEF. The outcomes of the analysis point at the fact that hydrogen leakage, steam leakage and overcurrent events on the HTEF side may contribute to an increase in the risk at the NPP side, in terms of higher probability of Loss Of Offsite Power (LOOP), Main Steam Line Break (MSLB) and Loss of Heat Sink (LHS).

Keywords: High Temperature Electrolysis Facility (HTEF), Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), Hazard analysis, Hydrogen production.


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