Dr. Amaya Arias-Garcia is the chair of the Anaerobic Digestion Certification Scheme steering group. She has over 20 years of experience in the design, construction, and operation of AD plants. The document discusses risk management in AD, including identifying hazards, assessing and controlling risks, and reviewing risk controls. It emphasizes the importance of prevention systems like hazard identification, management of change procedures, training, and emergency planning. Barriers at multiple levels like engineering, processes, training, and PPE are recommended to avoid errors and accidents. The certification scheme criteria aim to guide operators in establishing solid barriers and preventing risks in AD plants.
3. Amaya Arias-Garcia
3
Independent Consultant – Goals – PME
Chemical Engineer
Project Manager - APM Certified
WAMITAB's Certificate of Technical Competence in AD
NEBOSH HSE Certificate in Process Safety Management - Studying
Involved in the design, construction, commissioning, operation,
troubleshooting
more 20 AD plants including Agri, food, CHP, injection, wet, dry…
Chair of the ANAEROBIC DIGESTION CERTIFICATION SCHEME
4. Risk of What?
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Annoying the neighbours
Hurting the environment
Hurting people
Hurting the investors pockets
Losing your job
Gaining bad reputation
Risk
Management
Process
Assess
Risk
Control
Risk
Review
controls
Identify
Hazard
5. Risk Management
5
The objective of risk
management is to identify all
potential risks and put in place
suitable measures (such as
design features or operational
procedures) that will reduce
these risks to acceptable
levels.
Risk
Management
Process
Assess
Risk
Control
Risk
Review
controls
Identify
Hazard
Design Construction Operation
6. Pillars of prevention systems
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Commitment to process safety
Strong leadership and solid commitment
To understand hazards and risk
Correct and complete documentation
Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis (HAZOP)
Managing risk
Good operating procedures
Safe working practices
Training
Management of change
Operational readiness
Emergency management
Learn from experience
Apply Best Practices
Correct deficiencies exposed by internal incidents and near misses
Apply lessons learned from other organisations
Process
Safety
Systems
Safety
Culture and
Leadership
Operational
Discipline
7. Are we normalising Risk?
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“Everybody does it”
Carry on with commissioning without proper testing
Commissioning without purging
“It is not a serious hazard”
Digestate spillage
Operating without procedures
“That is how it is done here“
Not following procedures
Venting gases to atmosphere
“Nothing has happened before”
Not having RAMS for each activity
No maintenance programme
STOP ACCEPTING WRONG PRACTICES OR
DANGEROUS CONDITIONS
8. Layers and safeguards - Multiple Barriers
8
Barriers are designed to avoid errors
Infrastructure – Engineering
Technology Processes (SOPs)
Training – Supervision
PPE
Holes are latent weaknesses or active failures
Commitment to process safety is the foundation of process safety quality. Businesses generally don’t improve without strong leadership and solid commitment. A team that is convinced that the organisation completely supports safety will tend to do the right things in the right way even when unsupervised.
To understand hazards and risk, facilities should ensure that correct and complete documentation is available to allow the team to have process knowledge. With this knowledge a thorough Hazard Identification and Risk Analysis (HIRA) is the core element in process safety. HIRA includes all the activities involved in identifying hazards and evaluating risk to ensure that risks are controlled. These studies (HAZOP, LOPA, SWIFT) typically address three main risks questions:
Hazard – what can go wrong
Consequences – How bad could it be
Likelihood – How often might it happen
Managing risk focuses on ensuring that good operating procedures are in place, safe work practices, training, management of change, operational readiness and emergency management.
Learn from experience involves monitoring and acting on internal and external sources of information. To learn from experience businesses can apply Best Practices, correct deficiencies exposed by internal incidents and near misses and apply lessons learned from other organisations