Technology


- Pass written and oral exam on legislation and emission monitoring standards – administered by the MoE.


The responsible person bears the full technical responsibility for everything related to the ATA – from planning the activity, to managing it on site, and ultimately evaluating and interpreting the results.


All requirements regarding responsible persons are set out in decree 299/2023.


Authorised people and responsible people are obliged to carrying out ATA in accordance with:


- The applicable technical methodologies specifi ed in the accreditation certifi cate


- The requirements laid down by acts and decrees, and


- Documentation and requirements specifi ed in the permit of source.


2) Requirements for technical devices


- Technical parameters of the devices – metrological traceability


- Calibration intervals (for example, a requirement is to calibrate analysers at least once per year)


MONITORING OF EMISSIONS FROM AIR POLLUTION SOURCES IN SLOVAKIA –


THE ESTABLISHED SYSTEM AND NEW CHALLENGES Mária Machaj discusses how Slovakia monitors emissions from air pollution sources and how it differs from the EU.


In Slovakia, air emissions monitoring is regulated by a detailed legal framework. The framework specifi es how emissions from air pollution sources should be monitored, who is authorised to carry out this monitoring, and several additional procedural and technical requirements.


Legal framework


The most important legislation is the Act on Air Protection and on Amendments to Certain Acts No 146/2023 Coll., which outlines the basic requirements for air protection.


Specifi c details regarding emission monitoring are set out in Decree of the Ministry of the Environment (MoE) of the Slovak Republic on Emissions Monitoring from Stationary Sources and Ambient Air Quality in Their Vicinity No 249/2023 Coll.


Decree of the MoE of the SR laying down individual notifi cation requirements for a specifi c fi eld of authorised technical activities No. 299/2023 Coll covers authorised technical activities – essentially who, how a under which circumstances can we carry out measurements


Authorised technical activities


In Slovakia, the term authorised technical activities (ATA) is used in the context of emission monitoring to cover:


• Discontinuous measurements, which are further divided into specifi c categories based on their purpose


• Calibrations, test and conformity inspections of automated measurement systems (AMS).


The purpose of ATA is to demonstrate compliance with the permissible levels of air pollution, to determine the quantity of emissions, to determine the qualitative composition of emissions, and to verify compliance with the requirements for AMS.


The results of ATA are used for offi cial purposes in proceedings before the air protection authorities. That is why in Slovakia, the legislation provides very detailed requirements.


It is important to note that our national requirements supplement, rather than replace, accreditation requirements.


However, since technical standards often do not provide details (such as how many measurements should be taken or for how long, under what conditions and so on) that we consider crucial for obtaining reliable data, our decrees provide them.


National requirements


Slovak legislation defi nes a structured set of national requirements for ATA. These are aimed at ensuring the quality and representativeness of emission monitoring results.


We can divide these requirements into fi ve main fi elds. The following overview summarises these fi elds and highlights selected examples of the requirements applied in each area.


1) Personnel requirements 1.1. authorised person The Air Protection Act stipulates, that an authorised person can be:


- Someone who performs authorised measurements, calibrations, tests, or conformity inspections as a business activity, or


- A person granted permission by the Ministry to carry out a one-time measurement.


To qualify as an authorised person, one must hold: - A certifi cate of accreditation or an equivalent document


- EN ISO/IEC 17025 (discontinuous measurements, tests and calibrations)


- EN ISO/IEC 17020 (conformity inspections)


- A certifi cate of conformity of the accredited body’s activities with the relevant notifi cation requirements for the specifi c area of ATA. Certifi cates are issued by the Slovak National Accreditation Service


- A trade/business license. The last requirement to become an authorised person is to employ at least one qualifi ed responsible person.


1.2. Responsible person


The responsible person ensures the quality, reliability and legal validity of every ATA. This means that no ATA can be carried out without a responsible person.


Requirements for becoming a responsible person are set it decree 299. When we simplify them, they are as follows:


- Education in technical/engineering or natural sciences, or related fi eld


- Relevant professional experience in emissions measurement (the higher the level of education completed, the shorter the period of relevant experience required)


- Management and evaluation of at least one reference professional activity in each individual category of ATA that is applied for


- Documentation of precision of the devices and testing procedures.


3) Documentation of the emission measurements techniques. This must include:


- Detection limit and range of the measurement - Measurement uncertainty - Priorities in selection of the measurement technique - Defi nition of use, interference and disruptive effects


- Detailed procedures for handling measuring equipment including occupational safety requirements.


4) Measurement conditions Representative regimes:


In decree 249 (annexes number 1 and 2) is set out under which conditions ATA must be carried out based on its purpose.


For example when the purpose of measurement is to demonstrate compliance with emission limit (in case of single-regime technology) it is stated as follows:


“Discontinuous measurement is carried out in such a selected production and operating mode, during which emissions of pollutants are, according to theory and practice, the highest or emission limits can be considered to be complied with according to stricter assessment criteria, such as the established or determined requirements for assessing their compliance and the parameters of fuels and raw materials and the technical and operational parameters of production and technological and separation equipment are in accordance with the valid documentation, with the permit and at the same time correspond to the usual values.”


This distinction refl ects the fundamentally different objectives of compliance assessment and mass fl ow determination.


To determine compliance with emission limits, measurements must capture the highest capacity operation or with the emission regime that is most disadvantageous, in accordance with the source documentation.


On the other hand, mass fl ow measurements must represent year-round operation.


• Management of the particular measurement on various technologies (measurement duration and averaging procedures). For example: for a combustion plant with a rated thermal below 50MW, a 30-minute measurement period may be calculated as a fl oating average from a series of partial measurements with individual duration of 10 or 15 minutes


• Number of the measurements for various purposes and technologies.


Also decree 249 (annexes number one and two) sets out the minimum number of particular measurements required for ATA. This varies depending on the purpose of the measurement, the applied method, and the operating characteristics of the source. An overview of the required number of measurements is provided in Table 2.


These requirements are intended to ensure suffi cient representativeness of measurement results under different operating conditions.


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IET - JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2026


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