You are here:
SPods for Fenceline Monitoring
Citation:
MacDonald, M., E. Thoma, J. Carpenter, R. Brown, AND D. Garver. SPods for Fenceline Monitoring. U.S. EPA Region 4 Ambient Air Monitoring Workshop, Chattanooga, TN, March 28 - 30, 2023.
Impact/Purpose:
These slides are for an invited presentation at the U.S. EPA Region 4 Ambient Air Monitoring Workshop in Chattanooga, TN on March 28-30, 2023. These slides will be presented virtually. The title of the presentation is “SPods For Fenceline Monitoring”. The purpose of this presentation is to provide information on EPA fenceline sensor monitoring technology to air quality professionals in Region 4 attending the conference. We will discuss SPod technology and the Region 4/ORD SPod Fenceline sensor loan program. The presentation will focus on ORD's SEnsor NeTwork Intelligent Emissions Locator (SENTINEL) application for data analysis and quality assurance.
Description:
Communities near industrial facilities can be concerned about local air quality. ORD’s Next Generation Emission Measurement (NGEM) program is developing lower cost fenceline Sensor Pods (SPods) with near-source data analysis approaches that enable new forms of air pollution source monitoring. SPods combine wind speed and direction data with volatile organic compound (VOC) concentration measurements to provide real-time information on upwind emission sources. To further characterize emissions and impacts, SPods can trigger canister grab samples for speciated laboratory source fingerprint analysis. Easy to site, solar-powered SPods can help industry, regulators, and communities improve understanding of certain types of industrial source emissions, such as fugitive leaks and process malfunctions. This presentation will begin by discussing general NGEM applications at various distances from the source. A current SPod deployment near fuel storage tanks in Greensboro, NC will be discussed as a case study. The slides provide information on the ORD's SEnsor NeTwork Intelligent Emissions Locator (SENTINEL) data analysis tool which can be used for building visualizations of SPod data sets over time and quality assurance. Finally, the presentation will discuss the Region 4/ORD SPod Fenceline sensor loan program and the deployment of SPods and canister grab samples. The last slide contains scannable Quick Response (QR) codes with links to NGEM research for additional technical details on SPod fenceline sensors and the SENTINEL app.