Taking health, safety and the environment seriously

The Authority for Electricity Regulation of Oman writes: "We want to prepare new regulations to limit exposure to extremely low frequency electric and magnetic fields in accordance with international best practice. Can you assist us during the preparation of new regulations? And how will these relate to health, safety and the environment?

Floris Schulze replies: The rising profile of health, safety and environment (HSE) is actually an important development in many countries in the Middle East. Good working conditions have a major role to play in the success of companies and other organisations. The concern about potential health effects from exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) electric and magnetic fields (EMF) are in fact increasing worldwide. One of the main reasons for this concern is the publication of epidemiological studies that show an association between magnetic fields from overhead power lines and childhood leukaemia.

International advisory committees have set up guidelines to limit health effects among people who are exposed to relatively strong electric and magnetic fields. However, the above-mentioned association with childhood leukaemia has been found for magnetic fields that are much weaker than these guidelines. Mainly for this reason, national authorities of some countries have implemented precautionary measures in their regulation or advice on exposure of the general population to magnetic fields.

In dealing with this issue in your particular situation, I think four elements are important: a desk study to prepare an overview of guidelines/advice to limit exposure to EMFs in other (European) countries; recommendations for EMF regulation in Oman; EMF measurements at selected sites and locations in Oman; and presentation of the findings.

Our goals are to perform measurements of ELF-EMF in the vicinity of several types of electric utility infrastructure; review the status of scientific research into health effects of ELF-EMF, review international guidelines, regulations and measures, and make recommendations for new ELF-EMF regulation for your Sultanate; and conduct a seminar to present the results and recommendations.

The HSE provisions within the audited organisations are then compared with generally applicable standards and, where necessary, recommendations are made regarding the introduction, amendment or tightening up of procedures and guidelines.

Extremely low frequency and electromagnetic field measurements can be undertaken at various locations in Oman, including customer promises, Royal Camps and at locations with clusters of electricity lines and assets.

KEMA is increasingly asked to set up an integrated asset management approach within industrial and utilities organisations. This to minimise/prevent unnecessary outages, accidents, casualties and to extend the life of important assets, which reduces operations costs significantly. Environmental protection - in particular through the control of harmful emissions - will also become increasingly important in the Middle East. Spurred by the climate crisis and a sense of social responsibility, some governments are following Europe and the US and requiring companies to measure and record their emissions.

However, a continuous emissions monitoring system (CEMS) represents a capital outlay of several million euros, before one even considers operating and maintenance costs. From experience, we know that KEMA's predictive emissions monitoring systems (PEMS) model provides CO2 and NOx emission data that are just as reliable as the data from a CEMS - but modelling is obviously much cheaper than installing and running a great deal of instrumentation.

At the same time as working to control emissions, the countries of the Middle East are expected to invest heavily in renewable energy technologies such as solar and wind power in the years ahead. This means that subjects like the integration of renewable energy into the grids, balancing demand and supply, smart metering and smart grids will become important as well.

The same goes for more environment friendly ways to use chlorine in cooling water systems at power plants and other industrial installations. For example, how do you reduce chlorine use in cooling seawater systems by 75 percent without any adverse operational consequences? That was the question facing liquefied natural gas (LNG) producer Qatargas, located in the hydrocarbon rich Arabian Gulf. The state environmental regulator has been incrementally reducing the maximum chlorine concentration permitted in discharged cooling seawater from 0.2 to 0.05 milligrams per litre. Meeting these stricter regulations sounds like a tall order, but by switching to KEMA's Pulse-Chlorination technology, Qatargas is predicting compliance with the new regulations on a mass balance basis. Qatargas will be first company in the Indian Ocean region to use this pace-setting technology, which offers operational, environmental and economic benefits. It is also why Qatargas won an environmental award at the RECSO Offshore Arabia Conference in the category Excellence in Environment Technology.

Floris Schulze is Managing Director of KEMA Middle East, a leading authority in energy consulting, testing and certification. KEMA combines unique expertise and facilities in order to add value to customers in the fields of risk, performance and quality management.