Case Study: How One Utility Exceeded Its SF6 Emission Reduction Targets

SF6 emissions have fallen significantly in the last few decades. This is due to several strategies to help to reduce emissions, from both a regulatory and equipment perspective. As the utilities industry continues to monitor, manage, and reduce these highly potent emissions, using the right set of tools can help to mitigate its impact and ensure that organizations are aligning SF6 monitoring with their broader initiatives – all without taking away precious resources to do so.

While new equipment like SF6-free circuit breakers are gaining popularity, the utilities industry’s aging infrastructure also reaches the equipment used to manage SF6. This can result in increased emissions and make it more challenging to catch leaks quickly. But, for one organization, it sought a solution that could help it advance its monitoring program to support environmental conservation efforts.

The Problem

For one utilities company, they set aggressive SF6 emission reduction targets consistent with regulatory and public expectations for environmental stewardship. To help meet these targets, they required monthly reporting for SF6 emissions to monitor performance. They leveraged a manual process at the outset. This included entering monthly bottle inventory and weights in multiple spreadsheets that were then sent to the team to calculate losses. 

However, no centralized reporting system made it challenging to identify leaking equipment and obtain crucial details about the leaks. Maintenance crews found it difficult to prioritize and resolve issues. The data was collected by disparate teams, and there was no standard method of reporting. This made it challenging to document accurate values. The utility organization needed to update its process, from monitoring to reporting to maintenance, to meet its emissions goals.

The Solution

As the organization sought a SF6 monitoring solution, it prioritized:

• Standard data collection processes with a single source of truth
• Automated calculations to save time and reduce error
• Documentation for all gas additions to equipment
• Equipment leak rate calculations and reporting
• Maintenance planning for SF6 equipment

The utility chose ENGAGE: SF6 Monitoring to support its initiative. SF6 Monitoring delivers a single solution to monitor, track, and report on SF6 emissions and equipment. Standardized data sits at the core of the software – making it easy to compare values and see trends, detect leaks, and report on emissions.

The Results

For this utility company in particular, the solution drove significant benefit in the resources required to calculate SF6 emissions. It took at least five days per month to generate this information because of the manual calculations required across non-standardized data sets. With the use of SF6 Monitoring, this took less than one day – saving 80% of time required to report on this information.

SF6 Monitoring also documents all gas additions made to equipment. This provides insights into emissions sources, but also helped to inform essential data points. Leak rates, for instance, were easily calculated – meaning that high-leak equipment could easily be identified and prioritized for maintenance.  

Because SF6 Monitoring brought a complete view, it saved money for the organization. Lack of visibility meant that the utility was spending money to upgrade equipment or for top offs. More accurate data meant it could prioritize where to spend, and plan for what needed to be upgraded when. This helped to save money, as well as the resources required to install and manage.

The comprehensive capabilities of SF6 Monitoring resulted in the utility exceeding its SF6 emissions reduction goals in just one year. Because of the increased visibility into SF6 monitoring – and how easy it was to access this information – the company streamlined its business processes. It empowered it to reduce the time it took from leak identification to repair. This, along with more visibility into how to prioritize this work, led to significant savings in resourcing for time and money. Most importantly, SF6 Monitoring ensured the organization could significantly reduce its SF6 emissions. And in doing so, meet its quest to make an impact on the environment.  

Interested in seeing how ENGAGE: SF6 Monitoring can support your environmental conversation initiatives? Schedule a demo with our team.