16 Sensor Technology
PARIS WASTE TO ENERGY PLANT IMPROVES ODOUR MITIGATION WITH SMART SENSORS AND ENVIRONMENTAL INTELLIGENCE
A waste to energy (WtE) plant in northern Paris, known as the ‘L’étoile Verte’ or ‘Green Star’ waste recovery facility, which was originally built in an industrial area, is now surrounded by residential development. This has presented a number of challenges; not least of which is odour. The company ELLONA has therefore been contracted to establish a smart continuous odour and gas monitoring network, so that the sources of odour can be identifi ed, and improvement measures can be underpinned by scientifi c data.
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ommissioned in 1990 and built in an area that has hosted industrial activity since 1919, the WtE plant is situated at Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine and has an incineration capacity of 600,000 tonnes of domestic waste per year. Steam from the combustion process is used to generate electricity; the majority of which is used by the plant. In addition, heat is supplied to the Parisian district heating network.
The WtE plant is owned by Syctom; the largest European Public Authority in charge of the treatment of waste produced by 6 million inhabitants of the Capital Region of France. With a focus on innovation, Syctom makes waste a resource and optimizes waste recovery channels. As such, Syctom performs a major role in the development of the circular economy and sustainable cities.
Green Star plant modernisation
Situated within Les Docks, a 100-hectare eco-district, the owner of the WtE facility, Syctom, is implementing an urban integration project at a cost of €210 million, with completion due in 2024.
The project involves construction work, tree planting and the improvement of the fl ue gas and wastewater treatment processes. In addition, with residents now located just a few metres from the plant, Syctom has installed a network of ELLONA continuous air quality monitoring devices to identify the sources of odour, so that effective mitigation measures can be implemented.
Odour management at
the Green Star WtE plant In addition to the odour monitoring network, reports of odour occurrences by local residents help the plant to identify potential sources of odours. However, this process has a number of limitations. For example: some odour instances may go unreported, especially when they occur at night time; some odours may have been created by external sources; and odour is a subjective observation because different odours affect different people in different ways. Nevertheless, the main objective of odour management is to reduce or eliminate the effects of odour on local residents, so their feedback is essential.
Syctom has created a website for local residents association, Mon Voisin des Docks, which provides updates on developments at Green Star, and residents are able to report odour instances via the website
http://etoile-verte.syctom-paris.fr/signalement- odeur/. A short training course was provided for some residents; helping them to better characterise and report odours.
Prior to the installation of the odour monitoring network, it was diffi cult to correlate odour complaints with potential sources, so it was clear that odour monitoring would be necessary. However, the traditional method involves the collection of spot samples, so it was determined that a continuous odour monitoring system was necessary.
“The ELLONA monitoring network was established for a number of reasons,” says Claire Bara, Syctom Director of Urban Ecology and Environmental Regulation. “Firstly, it was clear that we would need continuous monitoring to be able to identify odour events. Secondly, air quality monitoring alone would be insuffi cient
because of the complexity involved with odour detection and perception. Thirdly, the identifi cation of peaks would enable us to correlate odours with specifi c processes and locations within the plant. So, by identifying the main sources of odour, we would be able to implement improvements that would also be monitored by the ELLONA network.
“Classical modelling tools would not be able to accommodate the complexities of the urban environment, so one of the main aims of the tool was to be able to identify every odour source – both on-site and in the surrounding neighbourhood,” Claire explains.
Odour monitoring
The presence of an odour does not necessarily mean that it is offensive. Odour is considered to cause pollution if it causes offence to human senses or the environment. The characteristics of an odour that are taken into account when assessing its offensiveness are frequency, intensity, duration, odour unpleasantness, and location.
The standard method for the determination of odour concentration (EN 13725:2022) involves the collection of a gaseous sample for dynamic olfactometry evaluation by a panel of trained human assessors. The advantage of this method is that the human nose is extremely sensitive, and of course humans are the receptors for this form of pollution, so
IET MARCH / APRIL 2023
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