MCERTS 2011 – a Remarkable Success


Marcus Pattison, MCERTS organiser Oak Court Business Centre, Sandridge Park, Porters Wood, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, AL3 6PH, ENGLAND Tel: +44 (0) 1727 858840 • Facsimile: +44 (0) 1727 840310 • Email: info@mcerts.uk.com • Web: www.mcerts.uk.com


Following the sudden closure of the Bretby Conference Centre, the organisers of MCERTS 2011 had to find a new home in time for this year's air emissions monitoring event.


The International Centre at Telford was chosen as the new location and following some frantic re-organising the MCERTS 2011 team was naturally delighted to receive unanimously favourable feedback from speakers, delegates and exhibitors.


MCERTS 2011 was organised by the Source Testing Association (STA) and was comprised of a conference, workshops and an exhibition. It provided the latest help and advice on regulations such as the recently published Industrial Emissions Directive (IED), and on monitoring techniques and standards such as EN 14181 and EN 15267. It also provided an opportunity for some of the world's leading instrument manufacturers to launch the latest monitoring technologies.


Summarising feedback from MCERTS participants, Dave Curtis from the STA said, "The new Telford venue was extremely impressive, providing superior facilities for all of the activities that took place. A lot of hard work went into the reorganisation, so it is extremely gratifying that the event was such a success. In addition to improved facilities, Telford also provides us with much greater opportunity to grow and discussions are now underway as to how this can be achieved."


Quantitech traditionally takes a large stand at the exhibition and their Managing Director Keith Golding said: “The new location is a significant improvement with better access and more modern facilities. The event was a great success for Quantitech; we were delighted to receive a high level of interest in the new MCERTS approved HORIBA PG250 SRM and a good number of existing and prospective clients visited our stand and attended our workshops on both FTIR and continuous Dioxins sampling."


Shawn Pullman from Siemens said: “This was our first appearance at MCERTS and we were pleased with the results. The quality and of visitors to both the event itself and to our stand was good and we have some interesting new leads to follow up.”


Similarly, Jim Mills from Air Monitors, added: “We enjoyed MCERTS 2011 and had a good response from visitors. Full credit must go to the organisers for arranging a new venue in such a short timeframe.”


The event was comprised of a main conference, over 60 workshops and an exhibition featuring almost all of the world's leading suppliers of emissions monitoring equipment and services. Designed to provide delegates with the latest help and advice on forthcoming regulatory requirements, monitoring techniques and standards, MCERTS 2011 provided the air and emissions monitoring community with an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas on how to comply with regulatory requirements and to share best practice.


Conference


Chaired by Rod Robinson, STA Chairman, from NPL, the conference began with a presentation by John Tipping from the Environment Agency, who provided an outline of the Industrial


Emissions Directive (IED) which was published in January 2011.


John explained that the IED will replace existing Directives (IPPC, LCP, WID, Solvent Emissions, and three Titanium Dioxide Directives); it will have the same objectives as the IPPC and other Directives but it also aims to improve consistency of regulation across Europe, so it is more prescriptive in places and the scope has been extended for certain sectors e.g. waste treatment and timber preservation. However, John emphasised two major issues within the IED; firstly, it contains significant reductions in emission limits for large combustion plants and secondly, it adopts a more prescriptive approach in BREFs (Best available techniques REFerence documents). Crucially, it says that emission limits and other BREF conditions 'shall be the reference for setting permit conditions.'


Combustion plant emission limits for SO2, NOx and dust have been lowered and the CO limit of 100 mg/Nm3


has been


introduced for gas fired plants. From 2016 large coal fired plants (and some older gas fired plants) will have to either install new abatement equipment, reduce operating hours or close. This will impose a large cost on many installations, however, a complex series of LCP derogations exist to extend the period beyond which plant must comply with the new limits.


Operator Monitoring Assessment (OMA)


OMA was introduced to strengthen the auditing of operators' self-monitoring arrangements and the Agency's Paul Wiggins gave a presentation which outlined the main requirements of OMA.


OMA covers the monitoring of emissions to air and water from industrial installations regulated under the Environmental Permitting Regulations (EPR). It enables the assessment of operators' self-monitoring (including monitoring undertaken on behalf of operators by contractors) using a consistent and transparent approach, and also provides a driver for necessary improvements.


In the course of his presentation Paul cited a number of examples in which process operators had failed to plan in advance of an OMA and performed poorly as a result. He suggested that an 'in-house OMA' in advance of the actual OMA, would reveal any gaps in the required information so that issues could be dealt with in advance.


IET May / June 2011 www.envirotech-online.com


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