REAL TIME, WEB BASED TECHNOLOGY FOR ADVANCED LANDFILL GAS SYSTEM COMPLIANCE AND PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT

Effective control of landfill gas (LFG) is essential to meet regulatory compliance, mitigate odors, and increase energy production at both active and closed municipal solid waste (MSW) landfills. Control of LFG is achieved through adjusting the landfill’s wellfield according to analysis of a standard set of collected data, which include: gas composition, pressure and temperature, and energy extraction information. These data are generally collected at as many as several hundred monitoring points at a minimum frequency of once per month.

The large volume of wellfield data collected and the high frequency of data collection can make management of LFG data an overwhelming task for the landfill operator. A majority of the operator’s resources is typically dedicated solely to maintaining compliance with regulatory guidelines. The remaining resources are often allocated to emergency issues requiring immediate attention. Overall spatial and temporal performance of the gas collection and control system (GCCS) is often left unnoticed, until serious problems arise.

More productive wellfield operation requires a shift in some allocation of resources from data collection and storage to data analysis and interpretation. In response to this need, an interactive web-based access point for LFG data allows for efficient storage, management, and analysis of LFG data on both small (individual well) and large (GCCS performance) scales. The real-time web-based management of LFG data reduces the resources needed for data management and data presentation to a fraction of what was formerly required, while simultaneously providing opportunities for more effective system evaluations through state-of-the-practice data analysis.

This presentation will illustrate the functions of the web-based system for data storage, retrieval, graphing, and mapping, and discuss the application of the developed features for increased gas collection.