In late August 2023, Duke Energy’s Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform Extension project was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy to receive nearly $1 million in funding.
Launched in 2021, the technology platform was designed to measure actual baseline methane emissions from natural gas distribution systems. According to Duke Energy, it has reduced recordable leaks by more than 85% since the beginning of 2022 by providing near real-time data collection that allows its field response teams to more readily identify and repair pipelines and other systems.
The cloud-hosted platform also tracks and prioritizes data associated with emissions using advanced detection methods such as satellites and ground-level sensing technology, with new sensor technology able to detect even trace levels of methane emissions, according to the utility.
“The funding will allow us to expand the platform to upstream assets like the Williams-owned Transco pipeline, which supplies natural gas to Duke Energy,” Sasha Weintraub, Duke Energy senior vice president and president, natural gas business, told American Gas. “We will also use the funding to extend monitoring to customer-owned assets as part of the pilot.”
Weintraub says the project will also help standardize a framework for advanced methane emissions detection across the industry. This includes analyzing data from the various technologies to better understand their performance, operational effectiveness and accuracy in different environmental and weather scenarios. Additionally, the funding allows the utility to leverage the results of the technology pilots and data architecture to develop a platform and strategic deployment plan to inform the Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform.
Ultimately, the funding enables Duke Energy to both expand its monitoring capacity and develop new monitoring technologies. “With the funding, we can expand our current monitoring platform by moving upstream and downstream of our LDC system along the natural gas value chain, as well as evaluate emerging technologies such as hand-held and vehicle-based detection tools,” Weintraub said.
“We are proud to lead the industry with this work, and we will continue to partner and collaborate with other utilities, technology vendors and regulators to build the business case to adopt advanced leak-detection technologies and methods for the industry.”