Biomass monitoring must be future proof 01 November 2009

Developers of biomass-burning renewable energy plants, which are increasingly seeing consents granted, should future-proof their instrumentation.

The warning comes from Quantitech director Dominic Duggan: "While biomass power represents an important part of the Government's strategy, a debate on the role of such facilities in climate change continues. It is therefore important for monitoring systems to be able to measure new parameters in coming years."

His concern is that too many plants are choosing analysers according only to the site's emissions permit.

"We have seen a number of biomass projects for which only a small number of parameters have been specified … and this may lead operators to choose individual analysers since that may appear to be the lowest cost option.

He makes two key points. First, monitoring requirements can and do change, and this frequently involves additional parameter sensing.

Second, FTIR is the most commonly employed multi-parameter technology for continuous emission monitoring systems (CMES) – but may be prohibitively expensive for biomass incineration.

His (biased) advice is to consider Gasmet in situ FTIR analysers because "they represent a cost effective solution to the need for accurate but flexible multi-parameter analysis".

Brian Tinham

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