Draeger invests in Kuva Oil & Gas Monitoring

  • September 16, 2020
  • William Payne

German safety and medical equipment maker Draeger has increased its investment in Massachusetts based industrial IoT developer Kuva Systems. Kuva Systems, formerly known as MultiSensor Scientific, offers an industrial IoT solution to continuously monitor and quantify methane and VOC emissions. The company says that its system can provide alerts with no false-positive readings.

A Cambridge, Massachusetts based start-up, Kuva Systems is starting field installations at up to 100 sites in Alberta, Canada. Additional field testing in Texas is scheduled to start in October.

The Kuva platform is a camera-based methane monitoring solution centred on colour-coded video clips of invisible gas that are automatically generated when emission events are detected. Kuva enables the oil and gas industry to continuously identify and reduce methane leaks as they occur and thereby meet ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) and methane intensity goals.

Kuva claims that its infrared camera system is not confused by the variability that thermal infrared background radiation creates in a scene. This allows for increased confidence in automated gas detection.

Methane emissions from the global oil and gas industry currently contribute to climate change at double the rate of worldwide aeroplane traffic.

The financing round also includes follow-on investments by investors from the Clean Energy Venture Group and Launchpad Venture Group. Formerly known as MultiSensor Scientific, the company has rebranded as Kuva Systems.

“We’ve been impressed by the progress of the Kuva team,” said Bernhard Mohr, Vice President Processing Industries, Dräger Safety. “Methane emissions are an extraordinary challenge for the oil and gas industry, both economic and environmental. The Kuva cloud-based gas monitoring service and low-cost infrared camera technology set them up as an unparalleled solution.”

“Continuous monitoring and quantification of methane emissions complement once-a-year optical gas inspections called for by regulations. Companies want to detect major emissions from abnormal system operations at high-risk sites immediately, recapture lost revenues from leaks, and demonstrate clean operations to investors, customers and the public,” said Stefan Bokaemper, CEO, Kuva Systems. “Unlike installed point detectors, a camera-based monitoring solution eliminates the need for expensive secondary inspections, minimises false positives, and thereby lowers the total-cost-of-ownership.” “While science is the foundation of our technology,” Bokaemper adds, “we chose to rebrand from MultiSensor Scientific to Kuva to reflect the industrial focus of our solution.”