Safety system architecture for a hydrogen fueling station

An apparatus, comprising:

• means for generating hydrogen;
• means for at least one of compressing, a storing, and dispensing the hydrogen;
• and
• means for monitoring the operation of the hydrogen generating means and the compressing, storing or dispensing means and shutting down at least one of hydrogen generating means and the compressing, storing or dispensing means upon the detection of a dangerous condition.

A method, comprising:

• monitoring the generation of a hydrogen stream from a system level;
• monitoring the at least one of a compression, a storage, and a dispensing of the hydrogen gas stream from the system level in concert with monitoring the hydrogen gas stream generation;
• and
• shutting down at least one of the hydrogen gas stream generation and the compression, the storage, or the dispensing upon the detection of a dangerous condition at the system level.

A hydrogen fueling station, comprising:

• a hydrogen generator, including:
• a fuel processor capable of reforming a fuel into a hydrogen enriched gas stream;
• and
• a pressure swing adsorption unit capable of purifying the hydrogen enriched gas stream to produce a purified hydrogen stream;
• a compression, storage, and dispensing unit capable of compressing, storing, and dispensing the purified hydrogen stream;
• and
• a system controller capable of monitoring the operation of the hydrogen generator and the compression, storage, and dispensing unit at a system level and shutting down at least one of hydrogen generator and the compression, storage, and dispensing unit upon the detection of a dangerous condition.