2024 Environmental Stewardship Awards
These are awarded for superior performance in the operation/maintenance of the gas infrastructure leading towards a lower emission future.
Operating Practices
An award recognizing superior performance in the building, operating and/or maintenance of gaseous energy infrastructure including methodologies and techniques that can be shared industry-wide to help nationally in the preservation of Canada’s air, land and aquatic resources.
Recipient:
- ATCO Gas – Evan Mazur, Engineer in Training, Distribution Engineering Growth
Vibration Monitoring, Plastic Mains Replacement
A plastic mains replacement project was being completed near a 100+ year old home with no foundation. Previous work from another utility caused damage to the home from the vibrations caused by construction activity. Evan introduced Peak Particle Velocity (PPV) vibration thresholds for the project (3 mm/s based on research) and set up three monitoring holes so that if the limit was exceeded, construction would be halted.
Installation method was Horizontal Directional Drill for the main and trenching for the service line. Alarm levels were set at 2 mm/s for early warning which were triggered twice, once when a chunk of dirt was tossed into the trench, and then when the mini excavator was compacting the dirt. The maximum PPV recorded was 2.6 mm/s and no damage to the heritage home occurred.
Innovation in Emissions Reductions
An award that would recognize superior performance in the reduction of overall emissions through increased efficiency in every-day downstream usage applications, the development and introduction of new innovative technologies for end-use, the role of gaseous energy in replacing other, higher emitting fuels in non-traditional areas and/or addressing fugitive or operationalized methane emissions both upstream and downstream of the traditional measurement meter.
Recipient:
- Enbridge Gas Inc. – Duane Vanderhyden, Supervisor, Fleet
Development of a slow-fill fuel post to fill hydrogen vehicles
A Hydrogen fueling post was designed, approved for use by regulators, constructed, and deployed to fill 4 Hydrogen passenger vehicles owned by Enbridge. The fueling post allows users to fill Hydrogen Nexos using small tube trailers that remain on-site with the fuel post. The project was completed with significant technical uncertainty. It was able to avoid the deployment of a costly thermal management system through the use of a needle valve to limit the heating of the hydrogen tanks on the hydrogen vehicles during fuelling.
The system is completely pneumatic and does not have any electrical service, which further reduces its cost. The design works well, and its replication will allow EGI to develop a lower cost, lower emitting hydrogen fuelling infrastructure to use hydrogen as a transport fuel, eliminating tailpipe carbon emissions, while still using gas to power its vehicles.