Kuva Systems, a leader in methane detection for environmental, social and governance (ESG) and net-zero attainment by the oil & gas industry, announced that its infrared camera has demonstrated reliable detection of emissions both from tank tops as well as equipment low to the ground. The METEC facility, first developed in 2016 under the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E MONITOR program, is a world leader in testing of methane detection technologies under real world conditions. The outdoor site consists of equipment typically found at upstream oil and gas facilities. Kuva’s system was tested as part of METEC’s Advancing Development of Emissions Detection (ADED) Continuous Monitoring Protocol, which was developed with funding from the US Department of Energy.
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Kuva’s camera, together with point sensors and cameras from other solution providers, was part of a five-month test at METEC that featured hundreds of test releases of methane at randomized times and duration. Kuva’s solution demonstrated consistent detection performance both for emissions low to the ground and from high up at tank tops. Tank emissions are the leading cause of methane leaks in the upstream oil and gas industry contributing to about half of total emissions.
Kuva’s detections of invisible methane are visualized with colorized images allowing for easy pinpointing of emissions to their source. The Kuva camera detects emissions independent of the wind direction and does not require wind to bring the emissions to the camera. In addition, Kuva’s cloud solution provided emission detections to METEC without a single false positive detection over the entire five-month period.
“Testing at METEC is the gold standard in independent methane emissions testing, and we are pleased to have partnered with METEC to prove our technical capabilities,” said Stefan Bokaemper, CEO of Kuva Systems. “Continuous monitoring of methane emissions is key to finding and fixing emissions fast. ESG stakeholders have to be sure that measurement solutions find emissions from all types of sources including tanks. Kuva has shown it can deliver.”
“The protocols developed in the ADED project are designed to evaluate the performance of new methane emission detection systems under a common testing method. Kuva’s results are a great example of how detection limits of continuous monitoring systems can be assessed through controlled testing in field setting,” says Clay Bell, Research Scientist at Colorado State University. “Additional systems will be conducting testing in 2022, and we hope results from the program will help inform the oil and gas industry how these systems can be adopted to meet their emission reduction goals.”