Landfill energy monitoring

As the global energy generation arm of the Clarke Group, Clarke Energy (CEL) has a powerful presence in all EMEA regions as well as Australia and New Zealand. CEL is leader in the energy from waste sector and is the main distributor for GE Jenbacher gas-powered generators and HASSE gas analyser products.

CEL was looking for a remote telemetry system to replace their existing ‘PC Anywhere’ based modem dial-up system. The new system needed to be more robust and automated than the current system and needed to provide a solution that was more in tune with their business need. This meant turning data into business information without consuming large amount of time to manually retrieving run-time statistics required for billing and when sending engine status notifications to site engineers.

Initially installed as part of a trial against other available telemetry systems at Brombrough Dock landfill site in Liverpool, netrixTM quickly showed its pedigree not only in both reliability and feature-set but also in Dexdyne’s flexibility and responsiveness as a supplier.

Emerging as the clear winner, netrixTM was selected by as planned, each site was commissioned in less than two hours, including wiring.

Dexdyne also developed custom web applications and dashboard status screens giving at-a-glance information on site operation, as well as live feeds showing engine status with remote restart facility.

With O&M teams spread around the country, all site engineers were set up as users and given access to the installations applicable only to them. Remote control access was also restricted to the supervisors in each area.

The next step for CEL was to get a set of reports for customer billing as well as performance statistics for internal use. Having this facility would release valuable operator time and provide important statistical data on engine productivity.

Using the custom Report Generator on the netrix Server, Dexdyne created a series of Excel reports that were scheduled to run every day, week and month. The resulting XLS files could be emailed automatically to key personnel.

The netrix Dashboard charting page proved very useful to CEL, in particular the facility to cross-reference periods of downtime with gas availability for presenting to customers.

CEL also requested custom Dashboard pages to run on site engineers’ BlackBerry units, providing information in the same clear manner as the desktop version.

CEL has since selected Dexdyne as their preferred technology partner. A roll-out of netrixTM controllers over 160 sites around the UK has been completed and netrixTM is now set for deployment throughout the Clarke group.

Having recently won further orders from CEL for new projects and innovations, Dexdyne is proud to be working in partnership with Clarke Energy.