The energy industry is inherently subject to many risks, which is why the safety of personnel and facilities is a priority for TotalEnergies. A core value on all our sites and in all our actions because everybody should be able to go home in good health after their day’s work. And for the sustainable development of our activities. Now more than ever, improving our capacity to prevent the occurrence of major accidents is an absolute priority.
The ambition of the OneTech branch’s Safety R&D teams at the CSTJF is to maintain the Company’s safety at the best possible level by developing and qualifying:
- New tools for modeling dispersion, fires and/or explosions.
- New gas detection technologies to react faster to anomalies in real time.
By using digital technologies as an innovative tool, data on safety risks can also be obtained more quickly.
Unique test infrastructures for detection
The Safety R&D teams have access to a test site called TADI (TotalEnergies Anomalies Detection Initiatives) located at the PERL in Lacq, to test and qualify innovative gas leak detection and classification technologies. The equipment came from the dismantled facilities of the former gas production plant (TEPF), such as pipes, valves, columns, wellheads, flares and so on, which makes it a realistic, modular industrial theater! We can reproduce, in controlled conditions, a wide range of accident scenarios based on feedback from the field (leak rates of less than 0.1 g/s up to 300 g/s).
TADI and the new remote-operations base (SPAT) are unique, permanent R&D infrastructures located in a SEVESO-3 industrial environment.
A new decision-making application to optimize risk management
STORM (Safety Tool for Operators and Remote Monitoring) is an on-site decision-making tool. Its objective is to step up the safety of personnel and facilities and prevent major accidents, particularly those that might cause gas leaks (methane and CO2). The application is capable of cross-referencing relevant data from different sources, including new-generation detectors, and generating concise information that can be used directly by the operator. The architecture of the application make it possible to access data locally – in the control room and the Smartroom – and in the cloud.
By concentrating the information in a single tool instead of having several programs and screens and by presenting it in a user-friendly, understandable way, the STORM application makes decision-making faster and reduces the operator’s mental workload. It will also be possible to use STORM in a crisis management situation.