ENV-05-187 A Large Refinery's Solution to Managing Data Needs for Continuous Emission Monitoring and Real-time Limit Calculations

Description:

New regulatory programs and New Source Review Consent Decree requirements for our Gulf Coast refinery will add more than 30 Continuous Emission Monitoring Systems (CEMs) to CITGO’s Lake Charles Manufacturing Complex in Louisiana in the next five years. In addition, new Title V permits place an increased demand on environmental monitoring, record keeping, and reporting. The first nine CEMs are going to be online by fall of 2005. Strategically, CITGO needed an innovative solution to enhance the work processes and address the increasing demand for additional resource needs of the departments impacted by significant increase in CEMs and reporting obligations. The departments most affected are the Maintenance Department (Analyzer Group) and Environmental Services. In addition, the Automation Department was enlisted to help find a solution and to ensure compatibility with existing information systems and strategies. A project team, consisting of members from all three departments, was created to search for and select a Data Acquisition and Reporting System (DARS) solution. The Project Team developed a selection matrix with department priorities included in the ranking criteria. After a detailed analysis of seven companies, the team chose GE Energy’s Data Acquisition Handling System (NetDAHS®) as the solution provided to meet this need. The discussion focus of this paper will be: 1) the system selection strategy, criteria, and prioritization developed by the screening team, 2) the project execution after system selection, 3) the system site implementation and acceptance, and 4) results to date.