Flare Management
flare.IQ solution offers an advanced flare control platform that reduces methane emissions, ensures high-efficiency flare combustion and reduces steam usage in flare systems.
Q. How can you tell if your current flare flow meter isn’t installed properly or working correctly?
A. You’ll see inefficiencies in combustion. The plant will have a higher emissions profile. This could result in volatile organic compounds being released into the atmosphere that could be harmful to the workers and to the neighboring community. You could see smoking events, which in the U.S., in general, are fineable offenses. A facility could actually have its operational permits revoked if it can’t operate the flare properly.
Q. How does flare.IQ help fulfill the compliance?
A. The basis of this EPA standard is smokeless operation and high combustion efficiency. As the flare changes rapidly, you need a system that has a very, very quick response time. And what we’ve developed is a technology that has a response time that’s on the order of one to two seconds, versus some traditional systems that have a response time of five to 15 minutes. We’ve come up with a traditional continuous control scheme that maintains an operational zone that is both smokeless and high combustion efficiency. That drives a few different things. One, it helps maintain compliance. Number two, it helps reduce the overall operational costs of the plant — it’ll use less steam and less fuel. Ultimately, it’ll have a lower emissions profile, if it operates in that regime all the time.
Q. What’s involved in implementing your technology?
A. Every flare has its own fingerprint — no two are exactly alike. And because of that, every system must be tuned to a specific process. Baker Hughes as a company is known as a service provider. We provide both the hardware-software solution as well as the service associated with that to enable efficient installation and proper commissioning of this device.
Q. How does flare.IQ differ from other alternatives?
A. What makes our system a bit different is that it’s using information that comes at a rate of one to two seconds versus some other technologies that have refresh rates of 30 seconds to a minute or even as bad as 5 to 15 minutes. A lot can happen during that time. The regulation has been written to allow for these lags but, in our opinion, that’s not good enough. We believe this solution provides our customers plant safety, operational efficiency and helps them meet regulation requirements. We’ve also been able to go to different customers and learn from their application. So, as a vendor, we have the ability to see into all these other customers and applications and learn from each one.
There’s a lot at stake — some fines are in the hundreds of millions of dollars for air quality. So, it’s a big risk for a site to handle this endeavor alone. Having a partner like Baker Hughes I think for these customers is very valuable.
For more information visit Panametrics, Baker Hughes, at industrial.ai/flareiq.