Duke Energy methane emissions monitoring platform to receive federal funding

(UI) – Duke Energy's Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform Extension project was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management for nearly $1 million of funding.

The company's current methane-monitoring platform – which has reduced recordable leaks by more than 85% since the beginning of 2022 – uses satellites, sensors and other cutting-edge technologies to detect leaks and measure real-time methane emissions on underground natural gas distribution systems. The Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform Extension project will expand this work to interstate and customer natural gas assets.

The project includes the Williams-owned Transco pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Duke Energy. Methane emissions monitoring tools will be deployed at a compressor station on the pipeline, expanding Williams' use of innovative ground-based, aerial and satellite emissions tools currently used to gather data as part of its enterprise-wide NextGen Gas strategy.

The project will take place in North Carolina later this year and will leverage academia, natural gas operations, digital and advanced cloud computing technologies as well as data science to deploy, measure and analyze methane emissions data. The project scope includes:

• Piloting measurement technologies such as satellites, unmanned aerial vehicles and aerial light detection and ranging, to detect and quantify methane emissions on local distribution natural gas assets.
• Testing continuous methane-monitoring technologies on distribution natural gas assets using monitoring sensors, gas cloud imaging cameras and handheld/portable gas-sensing analyzers to detect and quantify methane emissions.
• Analyzing data from the various technologies to better understand their performance, operational effectiveness and accuracy in different environments and weather scenarios.
• Leveraging the results of the technology pilots and data architecture and design to develop a platform and strategic deployment plan to inform the Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform.

Duke Energy's environmental goals for its natural gas local distribution companies are to achieve net-zero methane emissions by 2030 for its own operations (Scope 1 emissions) and to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 for natural gas purchases upstream and sold to customers downstream (Scope 3 emissions).

 

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