Single-blind inter-comparison of methane detection technologies – results from the Stanford/EDF Mobile Monitoring Challenge

Methane leakage regulations in the US and Canada have spurred the development of new technologies that promise faster and cheaper leak detection for the oil and natural gas industry. Here, we report results from the Stanford/EDF Mobile Monitoring Challenge – the first independent assessment of 10 vehicle-, drone-, and plane-based mobile leak detection technologies. Using single-blind controlled release tests at two locations, we analyze the ability of mobile technologies to detect, localize, and quantify methane emissions. We find that the technologies are generally effective at detecting leaks, with 6 of the 10 technologies correctly detecting over 90% of test scenarios (true positive plus true negative rate). All technologies demonstrated pad-level localization of leaks, while 6 of the 10 technologies could assign a leak to the specific piece of equipment in at least 50% of test scenarios. All systems tested here will require secondary inspection to identify leak locations for repair; thus, mobile leak detection technologies can act as a complement, and not a substitute, for currently used optical gas imaging systems. In general, emissions quantification needs improvement as most technologies were only able to generally provide order of magnitude emissions estimates. Improvements to quantification algorithms, reducing false positive detection rates, and identifying early applications will be critical for deployment at scale. Even as this study provides the first independent verification of the performance of mobile technologies, it only represents the first step in the road to demonstrating that these technologies will provide emissions reductions that are equivalent to existing regulatory approaches.