Operational and Forecasting Real-Time Air Quality Tool for Industrial Plants

A tool (TEAP) to evaluate in real-time and operational mode the air quality produced by industrial plants (power plants also) has been developed based on the third generation of air quality modelling systems. The system uses the non-hydrostatic mesoscale meteorological model MM5 (PSU/NCAR, USA) and the air quality modelling system (transport and chemistry) CMAQ (Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System) (EPA, USA) by using the so-called ON/OFF scenario which allows the user to have in advance (48 72 hours) a detailed information in time and space on what is the relative impact of the industrial emissions in an area up to 400 x 400 km (9 km spatial resolution) between 24 x 24 km with 1 km spatial resolution, 100 x 100 km (9 km spatial resolution) and finally 400 x 400 km with 9 km spatial resolution for those pollutants limited by EU Directives (SO2, NOx, CO, PM10 and Ozone). The system can be adapted to run in cluster platforms. Also, the system provides scenario analysis for different industrial plants at the same time and for different industrial loading capacities and provides the best scenario to avoid forecasted exceedances of the EU limits. The system is developed to provide the information in the Internet network. TEAP requires important hardware resources and intensive computer CPU demand but it can be implemented by using PC based platforms. The system can provide an important support for urban air quality since it can be easily adapted to traffic flow scenario analysis and another different emission reduction strategy. TEAP is and EUREKA project.