The Hydrogen Codes and Standards portal grew out of discussions between the Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the American National Standards Institute ANSI). The initial idea was to provide a single point for people to find information about the various codes, standards, and regulations that apply to the use of hydrogen as a fuel source. It was proposed that ANSI coordinate the effort, with participation by NREL and other federal government agencies, private sector standards developing organizations, and state and local governments.

An initial meeting was held to get the project started. Attending the meeting were representatives from:

• ANSI
• NREL
• Department of Energy
• American Petroleum Institute
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers
• ASTM International
• International Code Council
• National Fire Protection Association
• SAE International
• Underwriters Laboratories
• Connecticut Department of Public Safety
• Massachusetts Department of Public Safety
• New York Department of State, Building Codes Division
• Rhode Island State Building Code Commission

Various presentations were given that covered ANSI's database expertise, an overview of the Department of Energy expectations of the portal, an overview of the technology, and an presentation of the two templates that form the classification system for the entire hydrogen fuel arena.

It was decided that the SDOs would provide ANSI with information about their standards and into which classification they belonged. This data forms the core of the database, and is accessible either by browsing using the templates' format or by a search engine.

An initial demonstration version of the portal will be available to a small group of participants from several northeastern states beginning in late July of 2004. This will be available for approximately 3 months to allow the end users to provide ANSI with feedback on the portal, and to suggest changes and additions. A production version will be available by the end of the fourth quarter, 2004. The portal is dynamic, and will continue to have new features added. It is anticipated that the portal will grow to be a web-based hydrogen data center.

There are several ways to access the information in the database. To look for documents by topic, use the home page. The search page can be used to find standards by key word(s) or by document number. To be automatically notified when new documents are added, or when a document is revised, use the alert feature.