Best practices for measurement and impact on performance evaluation for novel carbon-utilization process technologies

The NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE-a $20 million prize competition focused on the development and scaling of innovative carbon-capture and -utilization technologies-placed credible data at the forefront of its scoring and ranking approach for the selection of prize-winners. To guarantee the quality of the submitted data, independent third-party verifiers reviewed each candidate technology and data set. While the Carbon XPRIZE contenders demonstrated a variety of CO2-utilization technologies at various levels of technical maturity and scale, it was found that early evaluation of the impact of measurements on process performance parameters via sensitivity analysis should influence the selection of instruments that have appropriate accuracy. In addition to appropriate accuracy, this assessment can lead to reduced costs associated with instrumentation rather than simply buying the 'best' instrument while simultaneously ensuring that uncertainties are kept as low as possible. With proper pre-planning, good engineering practice and good measurement practice, it is possible to optimize uncertainty against the costs and usability of instrumentation and data systems. Conducting a sensitivity analysis on the propagation of error calculation can help identify the drivers of data uncertainty. When selecting instruments for data collection, resources can be focused on reducing the impact of specific measurements that may lead to unnecessarily large uncertainty in calculated values.