24-08-2023

US Department of Energy select Duke Energy methane project for funding

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 industry-leading 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 natural gas distribution systems. The Integrated Methane Monitoring Platform Extension project will expand this work to interstate and customer natural gas assets.

The project will also offer a standardized framework for methane measurement and quantification that can extend to upstream components, including midstream transmission and storage, and upstream production and gathering facilities.

“We are proud of our industry-leading role in methane reduction,” said Sasha Weintraub, senior vice president and president of Duke Energy’s natural gas business. “This is a great example of innovation and collaboration, and we are excited to integrate and deploy methane emissions tracking to help decarbonize the natural gas value chain.”

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.

“Collaboration with our downstream customers like Duke Energy is crucial to advance the use of technology and to create opportunities to reduce emissions throughout the entire natural gas supply chain,” said Chad Zamarin, executive vice president of corporate strategic development at Williams. “As an industry, it’s critical that energy suppliers, customers and academics work together to share information and develop best practices to measure and reduce emissions, ultimately making certified low-carbon gas available to consumers."

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 both local distribution and upstream natural gas assets.

* Testing continuous methane-monitoring technologies on both local distribution and midstream 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.