Profile

Kristo Lillepõld is a Senior Consultant at DNV specializing in high-hazard industry process safety, consequence modelling, and Quantitative Risk Assessments (QRA’s). With more than a decade of experience across the chemical and energy sectors, including oil and gas, he supports major infrastructure and industrial projects with risk-informed design, safety case development, emergency preparedness, and regulatory compliance. Kristo holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Thermal Power Engineering from TalTech University, where his early research focused on hydrogen energy and its future applications. In Northern Europe, Kristo is responsible for advancing QRA practices, leading complex risk studies and applying both probabilistic and deterministic approaches to support sound investment and engineering decisions. His work increasingly focuses on the integration of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and QRA methodologies to assess hydrogen-related hazards, quantify risk, and optimize safety-critical design measures. Drawing on experience from hydrogen safety assessments for maritime and land-based applications, he has supported studies involving hydrogen dispersion, explosion modelling, leak and ignition frequency analysis, and the evaluation of mitigation measures such as ventilation, gas detection, emergency shutdown systems, and hazardous area management. Through this work, Kristo helps clients develop risk-informed hydrogen designs that balance innovation, regulatory expectations, and demonstrable safety performance.