Page 31 - Impiantistica Italiana Maggio Giugno 2014

Continuous Emission

Monitoring Systems

Achievements and perspectives

Enrico Arioni, Nunzio Bonavita, Monica Paco
ABB SpA

he last decades have seen a dramatic that a continuous stream of data is acquired
increase in environmental awareness. by rapid-response instruments, to be properly
The extreme wariness and criticism processed, displayed in real-time and stored for
coming from the social community future evaluation. It is the most expensive option
have led to the defnition and and sometimes it may even not be an option
T enforcement of stringent constraints when resorting to off-line laboratory analysis is
on the release of emissions. These constraints unavoidable. A typical example of this is when
are nowadays among the most important factors the required accuracy forces pre-concentration
impacting on plant performance and proftability of samples, so that pollutant samples must
being able, in the worst case, even to lead to the be accumulated over a period in order to be
closing down of production sites. These regulations detectable.
have changed and will keep on changing the rule- In the US, CEMS are required under the
of-the-game in many industrial sectors. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA)
Acquiring proper, reliable and timely information regulations 40 CFR Part 60 and 40 CFR Part 75.
about the real emission levels is crucial in order The European Commission has enacted many air
to be able to reassure and guarantee local pollution directives (notably the Large Combustion
communities and authorities and to identify and Plant Directive, the Incineration of Waste Directive
deploy adequate control actions capable to and the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control
drive and to keep the emissions inside the law- IPPC Directive) and some technical standards like
enforced limits. In principle several options are EN14181 – EN15267. As a matter of fact Europe
available for monitoring systems (e.g. continuous, is currently the biggest market for emission
periodic, campaign monitoring) but, as a matter monitoring systems relying extensively on an
of fact, the most effcient, reliable and applied Emission Trading System (ETS). This scheme aims
Fig. 1 - Overview of CEMS one is the Continuous Emission Monitoring to reduce green-house gases through a cap and
technology: scheme of System (CEMS). CEMS, also known in Europe trade system, allowing participating plants to buy
typical confgurations as Automated Measuring System (AMS), allows and sell emission credits.
Many developing countries, including India and
China, are also experimenting with cap and trade
programs. With increasing awareness in the
developing countries, new opportunities will open
up for emission monitoring market.

CEMS classifcation
A Continuous Emission Monitoring System (a.k.a.
AMS) is defned as the total equipment used to
acquire data, which includes sample extraction
and transport hardware, analyzer, data recording
and processing hardware and software.
CEMS can broadly be broken into three types of
methods (fgure 1 [1]):
• extractive methods;

Impiantistica Italiana - Maggio-Giugno 2014 27