Ei's GHG Intelligence

Greenhouse gases (GHG) and global climate change have been a hot and controversial topic over the last decade. EPA recently promulgated the GHG Mandatory Reporting Rule, which requires affected facilities to report GHG emissions using best available data as of January 1, 2010.  For example, as part of the GHG emissions inventory, refineries are required to estimate net annual emissions from various direct and indirect GHG sources, including but not limited to: NOx burners, storage tanks, flares, and fugitive components.

As part of our development efforts, we have begun to compile an index of regulatory equations in order to generate engineering-based compliance calculations.  Additionally, we are working to develop the functionality to be able to integrate intelligent P&IDs with Continuous Emissions Monitoring Systems (CEMS) and Distributed Control Systems (DCS), in order to establish a real-time GHG compliance assessment and reporting system.

The GHG MRR requires that affected facilities quantify total emissions from fugitive components in methane service. Therefore, we have designed the Ei GHG Compliance Module to perform real-time determinations of components in methane service by integrating with LDAR databases to identify subject components.  With this module, intelligent P&ID users can link their drawings to a refinery speciation dataset in order to automatically generate color-coded drawings and GHG fugitive emissions reports based on applicability.

We are monitoring continual developments of the GHG MRR in order to keep our client base informed and to design additional software tools to provide reliable and novel compliance solutions. As new developments in this area come to light, we will expand the functionality and reporting capabilities of the Ei GHG Module to meet the needs of our clients.