Grand Mesa, the world’s largest flat-topped mountain, rises to an elevation of 11,000 ft (3,400 m), about 6,000 ft (1,800 m) above the surrounding Grand Valley on the Western Slope of Colorado. With an area of 500 square miles, a harsh alpine climate and scarce communications infrastructure, it offers an excellent and challenging remote location for Hayden Data’s latest installation.
Two natural gas exploration sites have been selected to test Hayden Data’s Safe Well Network technology (SWN), our product line for the oil and gas industry. The focus of the installation is to detect, measure and monitor methane emissions. Even though the two sites are located in non-cellular coverage areas, Hayden Data can still provide data through the mesh network back to the cellular gateway positioned where service is available.
Installed on solid-steel skids in a clock-type arrangement, the devices monitor gas emissions, wind, temperature, pressure, humidity, UV, seismicity, rain, vegetation, detect fire and smoke, and provide visuals from on-board cameras, both standard as well as infrared to visualize gas plumes.
The data gathered below provide an insight of the emissions released from seven of the surrounding devices. The three devices indicating higher readings are all located within the prevailing wind direction at that time, hence providing higher readings than the other four. These data were exported from the UI Reports as a CSV file.
The test location demonstrates Hayden Data’s SWN technology’s capability to enable customers operating oil and gas well heads to measure and monitor on-site methane emissions, and correlate emission levels with site activities, such as pressure releases. Remote early detection of spills or mechanical failures on site enable rapid response and save operators of such infrastructure valuable resources in terms of reaction time and significantly reduce the cost for clean-up activities. The continuous monitoring and early detection of pump failures, as another example, enable customers to allocate maintenance resources based on actual condition and urgency, rather than regular schedules. Awareness, refined data and information helps customers with the increased challenges of record-keeping, monitoring and control to comply with ever stricter environmental regulation.
Small, robust, and autonomous with no need for power and comms in the field, Hayden Data’s smart IoT sensor devices provide relevant data in near-real time in the form of actionable and freely-configurable reports and alerts.
