METEC 2.0 Site Redesign
The METEC facility was developed with funding from DOE’s Advanced Research Projects Agency, Energy (ARPA-E) in 2016, with most infrastructure constructed during 2017. Conceptually, METEC has always included both above-ground emissions from oil and gas equipment and under-ground emissions from pipeline leaks.
In many ways, the research site may be thought of as a ‘wind simulator.’ The METEC facility mimics real-world oil and gas facility layout and equipment. As a result, wind transport disperses emissions similar to real-world conditions. This allows LDAQ solution developers to understand how their solutions operate in challenging field conditions using controllable emissions sources. The result is a unique facility for developing and characterizing LDAQ solutions.
METEC is primarily a location for ‘controlled release testing’—releasing gas from equipment in a highly realistic, but completely controlled environment. A controlled environment allows hundreds of experiments to be conducted a reasonable test program—METEC Testing Programs—something that’s hard to accomplish in field testing.
Planned Design
The updated METEC research site will closely mimic current oil and natural gas facilities, which include multiple well-heads, separators, tanks, and related equipment, which in turn impact how wind transports methane and other gas. The site design, represented in the CAD design to the right, will include three major zones: 1) a dense facility layout representative of current facilities (bottom of design), 2) older site representative of O&G sites circa 2014 (top half of the design), and 3) a simple legacy site (upper right corner of the design).
METEC 2.0 Site Redesign Project Updates
- In June 2024, METEC staff conducted listening sessions among industry experts to gather feedback concerning the METEC 2.0 redesign concept. Read the summary report.