Method and system for locating and quantifying fugitive emission leaks

Abstract

A method and system for locating and quantifying fugitive gas emission leaks includes obtaining gas sensor data and wind direction data from a plurality of sensors and weather stations located proximate a given area of interest. The gas sensor data and the wind direction data is validated to remove erroneous values and to merge the gas sensor data with the wind direction data to provide time synchronized gas sensor data and wind direction data over a given time interval. The time synchronized gas sensor data and wind direction data is segmented for each gas sensor location into wind direction bins containing a concentration of the gas levels in each bin. The area of interest is divided into a grid of cells and the bins projected on the grid cells for each gas sensor location along with the level of gas contained in the bins. The grid cells are then grouped into one or more contiguous grid cells having gas levels above a predefined level and a boundary area is calculated containing the grid cells with a gas level above a threshold to identify a potential leak area. The potential leak area is matched with a prior calculated leak area to identify the source location of the emission leak.