Patent ID: 9625094
Date: 2017-04-18
CPC Classifications: F17C,Y02E

Claim:
1. A method of operating a cryo-compressed tank, in which cryogenic hydrogen for supplying a consumer is storable at a supercritical pressure of 13 bar or more, the method comprising the acts of: conveying removed hydrogen that has been heated in an external heat exchanger to an in-tank heat exchanger provided in the cryo-compressed tank, through a tank pressure regulating valve and a branch line from the tank pressure regulating valve which branches off of a supply line leading to the consumer in order to compensate for pressure loss resulting from hydrogen removal from the cryo-compressed tank; introducing the removed hydrogen that has passed through the in-tank heat exchanger into the supply line downstream of the branch line; and either (a) guiding the removed amount of hydrogen that has passed through the external heat exchanger without limitation into the in-tank heat exchanger while the tank pressure regulating valve is completely open, or (b) having no return of the hydrogen that has passed through the external heat exchanger into the in-tank heat exchanger occur at all while the hydrogen passes through the external heat exchanger and then the tank pressure regulating valve to continue downstream in the supply line, wherein the tank pressure regulating valve is completely closed when a pressure in the cryo-compressed tank is above a higher tank pressure threshold value for opening the tank pressure regulating valve and is completely open when the pressure in the cryo-compressed tank is between the higher tank pressure threshold value and a lower tank pressure threshold value corresponding to a minimum desired pressure required by a hydrogen consumer for operation without functional limitation, wherein in the supply line downstream of the return of the removed hydrogen from the in-tank heat exchanger to the supply line, the supply line has a pressure regulating unit configured to supply hydrogen to the consumer at the desired pressure irrespective of changes in pressure in the supply line upstream of the pressure regulating unit caused by switching the tank pressure regulating valve.