Reducing business risk through joined up control and monitoring

The appetite for the development, construction and operation of waste to energy and biomass incineration plants is increasing, as local authorities and the private sector seek business solutions to society’s waste disposal needs. Unlike previous generations, such solutions cannot rely upon landfill. At any one time there can be upwards of 200 such projects at various stages of planning, construction or commission across the UK – and it is a number set to increase as waste disposal issues continue to dominate future environmental and energy concerns.

The owner/operators of such proposed sites are required to comply with a number of tough legislative requirements to fulfil their legal responsibilities – and this places great onus upon the control, pollutant monitoring and reporting systems employed at the plants to satisfy bodies charged with overseeing the operational and environmental impact of the sector.

Any business generating power from fossil fuels or the incineration of waste is mandated to monitor the gas emissions being produced, as well as prove to organisations, such as the Environment Agency, that emissions do not exceed the accepted thresholds set down in law. They also have to consider the need for plants to meet the specific requirements (dependent on the process) of three significant pieces of existing pan-European legislation – the Waste Incineration Directive, the Large Combustion Plant Directive and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive. It is with these overarching levels of legal responsibility in mind that all plant operators need to ensure they are meeting both their operational and legal objectives on a continual basis, or they will simply not be allowed to go about their daily business.

However, in order to further support this need to satisfy their legal masters, as well as seek improvements in their operational efficiency capabilities, I believe plant owners/operators need to start considering a more ‘joined-up’ approach to their key systems. Such a strategy will not only simplify the existing disparate and separate structure of control, gas emissions monitoring and reporting procedures – but can also, as a result of such decisions, drive benefits in key areas such as minimising business risk of non-compliance in emissions and reporting objectives, as well as supporting other areas such as streamlined and predictive plant maintenance programmes.

Integration of technology

The answer lies in the integration of available technology within a single platform. The traditional structure adopted by the industry to date has been to utilise three separate systems in an approach to plant control, gas emissions monitoring and legislative reporting. First, plant wide distributed process control systems oversee the operation of the plant. Second, the Continuous Emissions Monitoring system (CEMS) based upon gas analyser technology measures the polluting gases produced by the plant and is configured to satisfy specific European legislation according to the types of gases produced. Finally, the reporting system endeavours to take the information from the CEMS system and turn operational data into meaningful reporting collateral for bodies such as the Environment Agency. Three different systems – each with their own software platforms, operational issues and maintenance requirements – and all without the ability to communicate with each other in a collective, holistic manner.

It is true that such a structure has been previously adopted due to the lack of a single platform to accommodate the disparate nature of each individual system. However, advances in technology development are seeing this matter addressed to a point where it is now possible for a single hardware platform to run an overall process control operation linked to CEMS which is linked to the final reporting requirements.

The benefits

The benefits of such an approach are clear. Operators will have a single system instead of three, which in turn offers increased operational efficiency through easier maintenance strategies and a greater visibility for operators across the plant operations. This, by association, delivers real and tangible business risk reduction in the key areas of emissions monitoring and reporting.

As everyone in the industry acknowledges, all owners/operators of waste to energy and biomass plants already have to employ MCERTS compliant gas analyser technology as part of the monitoring process. MCERTS approved reporting, while not yet compulsory, could well become so in the future. The inherent advantage of a single hardware and software system that, as well as providing overall plant control, can also deliver both monitoring and reporting functionality to meet current and future MCERTS requirements, is one that should be seriously considered.