Performance Approvals
Performance Approval schemes are used in Environmental Monitoring to ensure that the quality of measurements meet a predefined standard which is acceptable to regulators. In Europe, the MCERTS (UK) and TUV/UBA (German) are the two main approval schemes for CEMS. The requirements of these schemes converged in 2008 with the adoption of the same performance standard, EN 15267 Part 3. The focus of these performance standards is an independent assessment of the accuracy and reliability of the instrument in a typical application (the field trial) and a separate set of laboratory tests. An expert committee approves the instrument according to the standard for a specified certification range and set of application conditions. In general, the lower the certification range the better the instrument performance since performance criteria are specified as a percentage of the certification range.
TUV approval
The TUV/UBA approval scheme for CEMS is respected in Germany and internationally, due to the extensive experience of certifying CEMS in Germany.
The TUV/UBA scheme is administered by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) and testing is performed by one of the TUV test organisations, including TUV Rhineland who are the leading test house in this field. In 2008, the TUV/UBA scheme was updated to incorporate the new performance standard EN-15267-3 as well as reflect German domestic requirements which are:
- BlmSchV 17: suitable for incineration plant
- BlmSchV 13: suitable for large combustion plant
- BlmSchV 27 and 30: suitable for other types of plant
MCERTS for CEMS V3.0
MCERTS is the UK's respected monitoring certification scheme which covers the approval of instruments and test organisations used for environmental measurements. The scheme is administered by SIRA on behalf of the Environment Agency and over the past 12 years has developed to include nine types of industrial environmental measurements including CEMs.
The 2008 version of the MCERTS performance standard for CEMs is aligned to EN-15267-3 and covers approvals for QAL1 approved CEMs, filter dust monitors and filter leak monitors.
Particulate monitoring instruments are commonly installed by plant operators in support of regulatory requirements to monitor emissions for compliance and arrestment plant control purposes. Regulators may require the installation of either:
- Particulate Continuous Emission Monitors (CEMs)
- Filter Leak Monitors
- Bag Leak Detectors
- Dust Gross Filter Failure Detectors
PCME's range of instruments support regulatory requirements for all these types of continuous monitors and are independently approved in Germany (TUV/UBA) and UK (MCERTS) to a variety of different test standards including:
- QAL1 according to EN 15267-3 (European requirement for CEM approval)
- MCERTS Version 3.1 (UK approvals for CEMS)
- TUV performance standards 2007 rev
- EN 15859 (European rules for Filter Dust Monitors and Filter Leak Monitors)