While we focused on reducing harmful methane emissions in our last post, another key reason to use real-time data with landfill gas collection systems comes down to your team — supporting on-site operations personnel, their efficiency, and their safety.
And it likely goes without saying that team members, whether owners, operators, or employees, want to see returns on their time and monetary investments.
Access to more data on a consistent basis gives your team increased visibility into the daily fluctuations of the landfill gas collection system, rather than having to rely on once or twice monthly readings and walkarounds to find and troubleshoot problems. On-site personnel can manage and support the collection system more efficiently, leveraging frequent readings and automated adjustments to detect and address issues. The automated fine-tuning capability can go even further, to optimize the landfill gas collection system’s performance and improve gas capture efficiency.
At the same time, the use of real-time data coupled with pre-determined threshold alerts — sent by text or email — around gas composition, flow rate, pressure, and more, enable team members to identify and troubleshoot issues on specific gas collection wells, regions of the landfill, or within the overall collection system faster. Technicians can more quickly find and fix air intrusions, leaks, or other problems in the gas collection infrastructure. And when troubleshooting on a landfill in inclement weather and dangerous conditions, speed and efficiency can mean fewer safety risks for your team.
In addition to safety and efficiency benefits, leveraging real-time data enables your teams to take proactive control and make adjustments faster to stay in regulatory compliance.
Taking it a step further, by incorporating and acting on real-time data on landfills, renewable natural gas (RNG) operators, owners, and developers can improve gas collection cooperation and coordination between the plant and landfill — empowering teams across these expansive landfill and gas collection projects. Ongoing access to more data creates opportunity for greater and more consistent communication around goals and progress.
With improved operations and an optimized gas collection system, teams see increased methane recovery, stability, and consistency of the landfill gas delivered to the RNG plant.
Frequent measurements and reliable data also support data-driven decision making — taking us back to our initial concept from the introductory post: “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” By analyzing trends across real-time and historical data, operators and are better equipped to make informed decisions and plan ahead for maintenance and infrastructure needs, ultimately impacting long-term ROI.
Increased methane recovery and more consistent landfill gas will help maximize an RNG operator’s return on investment, but using real-time data across multiple facets of landfills and waste management — from troubleshooting and on-site safety, to project coordination and long-term expansions — sets all teams up for greater success and in the end, the strongest return on their investments.