[인터뷰] Hae-Jong Lim, President of Korea Gas Safety Corporation-The Energy News

“Hydrogen safety management measures, promoted with a sense of speed”
Expanded and reorganized to the Hydrogen Safety Technology Institute to strengthen expertise
Untact safety management establishment and autonomous safety system establishment

[에너지신문] Hae-jong Lim, who took office on September 17 last year as the 17th president of Korea Gas Safety Corporation, celebrated his 100th inauguration on December 25th. President Lim Hae-jong announced his plan to lead the global hydrogen economy and make a rapid leap into the hydrogen economy by promoting the hydrogen economy activation roadmap and hydrogen safety management measures more quickly this year.

To this end, as of January 1 of this year, the Hydrogen Safety Center was expanded and reorganized into the Hydrogen Safety Technology Institute, and the existing two teams were subdivided into a five-part system for each safety management field to strengthen expertise. The number of dedicated personnel is also expanded to 80, enabling rapid work execution, and is actively working to establish the foundation for hydrogen safety.

President Lim also said that in preparation for the post-corona era this year, the company plans to focus its entire capacity on establishing an untact gas safety management system and a private-led autonomous safety management system.

▶▶▶ What are the main strategies for preventing gas accidents and growing the gas industry this year?

This year, the company plans to focus on promoting’New Normal Gas Safety Innovation’, supplying 120,000 timer cocks for the socially vulnerable, active support for SMEs’ overseas expansion due to Corona 19, and social contribution through discovering local and KGS-type jobs.

First, in preparation for the environment changed by Corona 19, the’New Normal Gas Safety Innovation’ countermeasures have been established, and will be actively promoted for the next three years (2021-2023). To this end, we conducted a competition for ideas to reduce accidents to the public through public participation and increased interest, and as a result, the tasks that the people felt were reflected in the New Normal Gas Safety Innovation.

Next, it is planning to actively promote the’Timercock Supply Project’, which will succeed the’Family Facilities Improvement Project’, which has played a role in securing a safety net for the common people over the past 10 years (2011-2020).

This year, it will secure a tight gas safety net for vulnerable groups by actively encouraging related organizations such as construction and local governments to participate in the project and supplying 120,000 timer cocks. To this end, a cooperation system with local governments, public institutions, city gas companies, and local companies will be established to secure business budgets, find vulnerable groups in blind spots, and purchase products produced by SMEs.

In addition, this year, it will contribute to the expansion of the saturated domestic gas product market by creating a smooth export environment for SMEs.

It plans to hold an export company support seminar to provide customized export information and support the government’s selection of overseas certification acquisition projects. In addition, it plans to provide customized support such as provision of overseas certification acquisition data and technical support necessary for export by each country by utilizing a network with 46 overseas specialized agencies in 22 countries.

In addition, KNOC’s intellectual property rights will be transferred to SMEs for free, and technical training for manufacturers will be actively promoted to contribute to the development of overseas markets for SMEs, which are the basis of the gas industry.

In order to preemptively prepare for the post-corona this year, the company plans to contribute to job revitalization by developing and expanding new job models through discovery of new businesses that can be derived from the company’s own work and non-face-to-face job development.

By utilizing experience such as job creation know-how, in 2021, we will strive to create and expand jobs suitable for the post corona through more preemptive and progressive business operations such as establishment of hydrogen-related industrial systems and discovery of local government collaboration projects.

▶▶▶ Preparing for the Gas Safety Corporation ahead of the hydrogen era?

In accordance with the’Hydrogen Economy Promotion and Hydrogen Safety Management Act (Hydrogen Act)’ enacted in February last year, the Korea Gas Safety Corporation secured the safety of hydrogen products and commercial vehicles, expanded opportunities for education and experience in hydrogen safety to the public, and nurtured hydrogen safety experts. Various tasks are being pursued.

Currently, it has secured a budget of 19.5 billion won to build a’hydrogen product testing laboratory’, which is an essential infrastructure for securing the stability of hydrogen products, and is promoting a site competition with the goal of completion in December 2022. With a total floor area of 3494m2, 47 types of hydrogen product testing facilities will be built to enable legal inspection of 4 types of low-pressure hydrogen products (water electrolysis facilities, hydrogen extraction facilities, fixed and mobile fuel cells), which had a gap in existing safety management.

In addition, preparations are in full swing to build inspection equipment for large-capacity pressure-resistant containers and hydrogen bus parts in accordance with the government’s expansion plan for hydrogen commercial vehicles.

Last year, the KTO secured a budget of 10.27 billion won by entrusting the research service for the’hydrogen bus safety evaluation technology and equipment development project’ by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport. The Energy Safety Verification Research Center will take this opportunity to further accelerate the bus safety evaluation technology and develop 16 types of pressure-resistant containers and parts testing facilities for hydrogen buses and trucks in stages by 2023 and use them for test and certification.

In particular, it is promoting the establishment of the’Hydrogen Gas Safety Experience Education Center’ in order to provide the citizens with the right information about hydrogen and to provide a space where they can directly experience and experience it. Through the’Hydrogen Gas Safety Experience Education Center’, which will be opened in 2022, we will provide opportunities to raise awareness of hydrogen and contribute to becoming a more friendly energy source for the public.

In addition to improving public awareness, KDHC is also striving to improve the education system for securing and training human resources for safety management of hydrogen charging facilities.

Part of the Enforcement Decree of the High-Pressure Gas Safety Management Act in May 2019 was revised to allow a person to be appointed as a safety manager (responsible person and safety manager) for a hydrogen charging facility after obtaining a general facility safety manager qualification.

In addition, KDHC will contribute to fostering hydrogen professionals through the development of convergence courses with related universities, and will make all-around efforts to secure safety throughout the entire hydrogen economy, such as product testing, commercial vehicle component certification, promotion, and education.

▶▶▶ In relation to the aging of gas facilities, what is the plan or direction of the Gas Safety Corporation?

With the goal of completing the development in the second half of 2022, it is planning to develop AE evaluation technology for atmospheric pressure storage tanks. As a preemptive step for this, we are developing artificial intelligence (AI) acoustic emission signal analysis software to derive meaningful AE signals using the AE diagnosis DB.

Defect detection technology using AE (Acoustic Emission) test is one of the non-destructive testing techniques (NDT) that inspects the corrosion state of the lower deck while it is in operation without emptying the contents of the storage tank.It is a technique developed in earnest since 1989.

It has the advantage of being able to inspect a relatively large area, monitor while using equipment or structures, and measure in real time, and detect the location of defects.

Defect detection technology is expected to become a leading technology in diagnosis technology related to pressure vessels by expanding it to various high-pressure gas storage tanks as well as atmospheric pressure storage tanks in the future. In addition, potential risk factors will be identified and removed in advance by expanding the subject of precision safety checkups and developing advanced equipment introduction technologies utilizing 4th industrial technology to secure the health of old facilities.

▶▶▶ This year’s LPG container furniture facility improvement project.

This year, a new budget of 1.5 billion won was reflected in the facility improvement of LPG container furniture, which replaces hose facilities of old LPG container furniture with pipes. The facility improvement of LPG container-use furniture is a follow-up project of’gas facility improvement for the common people’, which replaces the LPG hose facility of basic household supply and demand furniture with pipes, which was promoted since 2011.

By 2030, by investing a budget of 139.2 billion won over the next 10 years, it is expected to be able to significantly reduce LP gas accidents by replacing about 450,000 LPG container hose facilities with pipes.

In the process of securing the budget for this’LPG Container Facility Improvement’, I learned that the government and the National Assembly are deeply sympathizing with the KTO on the’social atmosphere that places safety as the highest value’.

In the future, we ask for continued interest and encouragement from the National Assembly and government officials for a’safe construction of Korea’, as in the case of securing the budget for this’LPG container-use furniture facility improvement’ project.

▶▶▶ The fourth industrial technology is also being applied to the gas industry.

In recent years, the gas industry is also applying 4th industrial technologies such as gas boiler control through mobile smart home service, smart city gas facility and pipe safety management system using GIS, and NFC-based gas meter reading.

However, no matter how advanced and automated technology is, safety management training and emergency response training are still important to prevent actual accidents in safety sites.

Therefore, in order to cultivate human resources competent in safety management at industrial sites, KDHC is planning and operating training centered on hands-on experience by establishing an environment similar to the real one. Examples are virtual reality (VR)-based toxic gas safety education and crisis response scenarios for each situation of refrigeration manufacturing facilities.

Various measures are being sought to develop a curriculum based on 4th industry technology that will help trainees understand, and they are actively responding to the changing internal and external environment by expanding cyber education to maintain continuity of education even in emergency situations. It will continue to improve the quality of education by actively introducing new technologies such as VR, AR, and MR, and contribute to improving the understanding and acceptance of trainees, rather than settling on the existing curriculum.

▶▶▶ What is the public gas safety promotion strategy this year?

Publicity is an important project specified at the top of the articles of association of the Korea Gas Safety Corporation, and is an essential element for establishing a gas safety culture for the public.

In the face of the recent change in the internal and external public relations environment and the turning point of Corona 19, he felt the need for gas safety publicity changes, and actively introduced Untact publicity.

It is planning to expand the area of public participation by focusing on online contents such as mobile, single-person broadcasting, webtoon, and untouch by actively reflecting the promotion trend centered on new media in this year’s promotion business from traditional media.

Considering that it is difficult for suppliers to inspect face-to-face due to Corona 19, the company plans to continuously induce self-inspection by users by guiding self-inspection items through promotional contents such as promotional videos and flyers.

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