Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas) changed from meeting environmental monitoring regulations using manpower and paper and pencil to a state of the art 21st century monitoring system in less than three years.
SoCalGas is the nation’s largest natural gas distribution utility, and the SoCalGas service territory encompasses terrain throughout Central and Southern California, from Visalia to the Mexican border. Many of the SoCalGas transmission compressor stations impacted by RICE NESHAPS are hundreds of miles away from the central gas control base and many are unmanned. Regulations adopted on April 01, 2013 directly impacted these transmission compressor stations.
This presentation covers SoCalGas' opportunity to establish a foundation for addressing environmental regulations including but not limited to RICE NESHAPS, GHG, local air district rules, and Title V permit conditions.
The PI System is the basis for SoCalGas’ quantum leap in data collection and monitoring. Topics discussed include:
Reduction of 504 man hours for determining RICE NESHAPS compliance
Automated report generation, consistency of data handling
Use of MS EXCEL , VBA, PI Data Access tools
Establishment of a system composed of 6 remote stations plus central station for data aggregation, monitoring, and access to station data for non station personnel.
Use of PI-PI over WAN
Each station has a dedicated PI server
Use of MS Active Directory and PI Identities, for authorization
Data rationalization and system health monitoring
Use of OSIsoft Partner services and PI extensions
Compliance Assurance
Functions such as Calculations, Alarm detection, notification, incident annotation and reporting
Data rationalization and system health monitoring
Establishment of an Environmental Data Infrastructure
Ability to add equipment and measurements
High reliability and availability of data
Speaker
Zacharie Muepo
Zacharie Muepo is a Senior Environmental Specialist for Southern California Gas Company. He holds a BS in Engineering from University of Southern California and an MBA from the University of Phoenix. He has worked in the environmental field for 25 years, with 17 1/2 of those years for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. He has worked the last 8 years for the Southern California Gas Company, specializing in air quality compliance.