How the French government are tackling emissions from agricultural methanisation

From 20th to 22nd September 2023, CEM 2023 will take place in Barcelona - our largest emissions monitoring event to date, with more exhibitors and presentations than ever! With 25 years of experience behind it and regular attendance from all around the world, this year’s conference will be CEM’s highly anticipated return to live events – and once again, our Scientific Committee have excelled themselves, putting together a jam-packed programme of talks and workshops delivered by thought-leaders, regulators and industry veterans from all across this global sector. As such, CEM 2023’s conference programme features representatives from many of the major national research institutions, with talks from members of the European Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control Bureau (EIPPCB), a department of the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre; the Environmental Protection Agency (United States); the Environmental Protection Agency (United States); the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (India); the Technical Research Centre of Finland; Italy’s Institute for Energy System Research (RSE); and France's National Institute for Industrial Environment and Risks (INERIS). 

In support of the French government, INERIS has been working for several years to better understand the real levels of emissions from methanisation installations in order to promote a safe and sustainable development of the sector. However, due to a lack on a national scale, the production of specific data appears necessary to improve knowledge, establish effective prevention measures and reduce biogas losses. Enter: The MethanEmis Project. Co-funded by ADEME and the French Ministry of Ecological Transition, the MethanEmis Project aims to fill these gaps by looking at the emissions (fugitive and diffuse) of three agricultural methanisation facilities considered representative of the French fleet over long periods of time. In terms of scientific approach, the project is based on four axes: (i) monitoring of site operating conditions (process data and identification of situations with the operator); (ii) measurements at source to quantify emissions from channelled sources (discharges from cogeneration engines) and losses due to leaks (equipment, pipes, leakage losses, for example); (iii) 3-month environmental monitoring of CH4 in ambient air and associated meteorological conditions to quantify the overall emission from each installation; (iv) atmospheric dispersion modelling of emissions using a LaGrangian approach. The analysis of the measurement data with respect to the site operating conditions has allowed to highlight different singular emission situations of the installations. By focusing on these situations, the comparison of the output data from the simulations with the environmental measurements then made it possible to prioritize the sources, estimate the emissions from the various sources, correlate emissions and operating conditions, and finally assess the methane footprint of the installations in their environments. On Day 2 of CEM 2023, as part of our session on fence-line monitoring and the measurement of fugitive or diffuse greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution, Dr. Brice Berthelot of INERIS will present a report on this important project. 

With two rooms running sessions in parallel over all three days of the conference, attendees to CEM 2023 will have full access to a whole host of presentations that will provide process operators, plant managers, laboratory technicians, instrument users and apprentices with the latest information on developments in emissions monitoring and measuring applications, regulations and technologies.    

If you’re interested in attending this year’s most exciting emissions monitoring event, just click here to get your pass to CEM 2023 today.