The Use of Third Generation Air Quality Modeling Systems for Web Operational Real-time Forecasting Decision Support Systems: Spain Case

New generation of electric power plants and industrial plants are important emission sources generally surrounding large, medium and small cities. Future tendencies on energy production envision that the growing demand of electricity will push forward the need to construct more electric power plants with different combustion material. In Spain, the growing electric energy demand has conducted to a growing market on natural gas combined cycle electric power plants. The air quality impact of such a plant is considerable smaller than the old ones but the modern EU Air Quality legislation is starting to obligate to control the air quality impact in real-time and forecasting mode. This tool presents the first implementation in Spain over a 4 group combined cycle electric power plant, located in the surrounding area of Madrid Community (Spain) by using the MM5-CMAQ-EMIMO modeling tool. The MM5 model is widely used al over the world developed by PSU/NCAR (USA) and the CMAQ model is the so-called Community Multiscale Air Quality Modelling System developed by EPA (USA) and finally EMIMO is an anthropogenic and biogenic emission model to produce hourly emissions per pollutant per squared kilometer. The system is accessed over the Internet for the environmental authorities and company managers under daily basis. The tool produces alerts every day according to the results of the model. Final decision related to possible shut-down for a limited period of time of the different power plant groups - in case of exceeds of EU Directive limits due to the emissions of the different power groups - is taken by environmental authorities in real- time. The system prototype was part of the EUREKA project TEAP (A tool to evaluate the air quality impact on industrial plants) (2001-2003). The same approach can be used for any other industrial plant and also for any emission source apportionment such as traffic over specific sections of the model domain or even specific pollutants over determined areas in the model domain.