Vapor Extraction Unit Valued In LDC War On Leaks

摘要

An experienced gas utility field distribution crew struggled with frozen ground and sub-freezing January temperatures in northern Idaho a few years ago. They were seeking to pinpoint and resolve a natural gas leak in a rural corner of Avista Utilities' three-state service area. Avista is based in Spokane, WA. The search for the leak was routine, at best, for the crew, but time-consuming. Today, Bill Baker, gas training and codes coordinator for Avista, looks back with a measure of frustration on that incident that unfolded in a subdivision of five-acre residential properties. Avista's crew was attempting to mitigate the leak without knowing its precise source through a traditional hunt-and-peck method of punching a series of holes in the ground and allowing the migrating gas to escape harmlessly into the air. Flash forward to 2011, and Baker cites the Idaho example as one from the costly, inefficient past. The same crew today relies on a trailer-mounted, mobile, diesel-powered Vapor Extraction Unit (VEU) that sucks up the migrating gas and pinpoints the leak's source in hours - not days-at about 20% of the cost of the old methodology.