Partnership Opportunities in Monitoring and Accounting Power Plant Emissions with TROPOMI and the Global Power Plant Database

The availability of high quality, granular data from the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) has excited many in the scientific and environmental health community because of the improved ability to monitor air pollutants in the atmosphere. Despite the effects on public health posed by NOx and other air pollutants, there remains a large potential to improve point sources attribution of NOx and further understand polluter characteristics. Electricity production is one of the primary sources of NOx emissions; according to the EU emissions inventory 34% of NOx emissions for the year 2011 came from power generation, making it the second largest contributor to NOx after the transport sector. In contrast to the transport sector, NOx emissions from electricity generation come from a limited number of large stationary sources.

Two recent developments in openly accessible data allow for better monitoring of power plant emissions. The Global Power Plant Database is an open-access open-use dataset of the world's power plants that is in continual development under a partnership led by the World Resources Institute (WRI). The Database contains well over 28-thousand power plants of all generating types and includes information such as generating capacity, fuel type, and accurate geolocation. Pollutant concentration data from the European Space Agency's Sentinel 5P satellite and the TROPOMI sensor enables daily views into a set of air pollutants world wide at previously unavailable spatial resolution. When visualized with context from the Global Power Plant Database and global wind models, strong correlations are found between the locations of linear and arcuate streaks of high pollutant concentrations and large fossil-fuel burning power plants.

This presentation details the collaborative research opportunities for monitoring and accounting air pollutants from power plants across the world using TROPOMI data. It highlights existing research partnerships, data limitations, and methodological uncertainties in linking measured atmospheric species to a point source. A discussion of research progress and future aspirations demonstrates the need for multi-party partnerships to develop and operationalize algorithms for quantifying emissions of individual power plants in near-real time.