Methane, the second largest contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, has a short atmospheric lifetime, therefore cutting methane emissions has a major impact on climate change. The EU’s Methane Action Plan supports the Global Methane Pledge to reduce global methane emissions by 30 % by 2030. The EU has introduced Methane Regulations for the energy sector. To enable this regulation to function, reliable, validated, standardised methods are required, as identified by CEN TC264, to provide regulators and industry with the tools necessary to detect, quantify, report and reduce methane emissions at source and site scales.
This project will address that need by i) developing performance standards and methods for the use of methane controlled released to validate measurement methods at component scale, ii) providing tools for industry to efficiently locate and report source levels emissions, updating EN15446 which is used to locate leaks and support the development of new methods e.g. use of OGI for LDAR, iii) supporting the development of a toolbox of validated methods for site/sub-site scale emission reporting, iv) developing good practice to validate technologies using model-based and controlled release approaches, and v) providing guidance for meteorological measurements and on uncertainty determination.
Reducing anthropogenic methane emissions has a major impact on climate change and has been identified as a priority through global initiatives such as the Global Methane Pledge. To address these initiatives the EU’s Methane Action Plan commits to reduce global methane emissions by 30 % by 2030.
In order to address some of the most readily actionable emissions and addressing a gap in the Union legal framework on emissions reduction in the energy sector, the EU introduced Methane Regulations (EUMR) which addresses emissions from the energy sector. The regulation requires the establishment of standards to enable industry to measure, monitor, report and reduce emissions and to verify this. To enable the regulation to function correctly and to support the top-level reporting and monitoring standards, there is an immediate need for reliable, validated, standardised measurement methods, as identified by CEN TC264. These measurement methods will provide regulators and industry with the tools necessary to detect, quantify, report, and reduce methane emissions at source and site scales. Inherent in the development of such standards is the need to validate their performance and to develop robust uncertainty estimates for the results they produce. These needs are addressed by this project.
22.06.26
A successful Kick Off meeting for the METRONOME Project was held by NPL on the 4th June, with all partners in attendance.
Fabrizio Innocenti (NPL) welcomed all the partners to the first meeting of this new project. Fabrizio provided an overview of the project overall, and Zhechao Qu (PTB) provided a summary of what is required under WP1.
Stefan Persijn (VSL) took the partners through an overview of WP2, and Théo Claude (INERIS) presented on WP3.
Emilien Muzelle (NaTran) provided an overview of WP4 and Tamara Sarac (GERG) presented on WP5. This was followed by Fabrizio and Garry Hensey (NPL) providing everyone with an overview for all partners requirements towards WP6.
Reports to appear periodically throughout the duration of the project
Papers to appear periodically throughout the duration of the project
Deliverables and guides to appear periodically throughout the duration of the project
Posters to appear periodically throughout the duration of the project
The aim of this work package is to develop the validated measurement protocols, performance standards and uncertainty budgets for source scale and site scale required to support regulation. This will cover i) ‘sniffing’ (where sensors detect methane using in-situ emission measurements) and OGI based leak detection approaches, and ii) hi-flow sampling techniques and quantified OGI approaches for source scale quantification. The work will take into account the requirements of Type 1 and Type 2 leak detection surveys, and it will assess the impact and role of meteorological measurement data in the quality of emission quantification. Type 1 leak detection surveys (e.g. OGI) are designed for rapid leak detection and repair of larger leaks (>7000 ppm or 17 g/h), Whereas Type 2 surveys (e.g. “sniffer”), are designed to be more comprehensive and detect smaller leaks (500 ppm or 1 g/h). Suitable instrumentation for a Type 1 survey may have a higher minimum detection limit than those used for a Type 2 survey.
The aim of this work package is to support the development of standardised methods for leak detection and repair at source scale. Updated correlation curves to relate concentration to emission rates will be developed as input for the revision of EN 15446 and quality control approaches will also be developed to support the on-going development of an OGI standard for leak detection. The WP will also develop performance standards for methane sensors and utilise capabilities to produce methane reference leaks in the low range, including methods to ensure the traceability of leak rate measurements.
The aim of this work package is to improve the understanding of the performance of site-scale methane emission quantification methods. Many emission quantification methods rely on the combination of wind flow data and concentration data to determine emission rate (or flux). The impact of the meteorological data is often very significant and overlooked in the assessment of the overall methodologies. To achieve this aim, considering the diversity of methods and use-case scenarios defined in WP1, the work in this WP will be based both on field work with controlled releases and numerical simulations of dispersion providing “synthetic plumes”. The latter will challenge quantification method strategies and determine the impact of the meteorological data on the uncertainty of these methods.
The aim of this work package is to provide tools to determine the uncertainty for the site scale techniques by assessing the influence of parameters on methane emissions quantification and to support the development a toolbox of standardised methods, e.g. DIAL, OGI, TC, RDM, airborne mounted sensors (unmanned aerial vehicles and aircraft), for methane quantification at industrial site and at sub-site scales. The uncertainty contributions from the concentration and meteorological data will be assessed, taking inputs from WP3.
The influence of the meteorological data uncertainties will be calculated by varying a set of important parameters, in a realistic way. To do so, the project will use the sensitivity study developed in Task 3.3. This approach will enable the assessment of the impact of different parameters through different temporal/spatial scale and scenarios (e.g. temperature, meteorological stability, wind speed).
(This will link to the SharePoint site) restricted for partners and the SC only
The part of the website with restricted access will be dedicated to exchanging information, data, papers and reports between partners. It will also include a digital archive of all presentations, reports and papers from the project.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or EURAMET. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. The project has received funding from the European Partnership on Metrology, co-financed from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme and by the Participating States.
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