Comparison of monitoring systems for anaerobic digesters

The deployment of modern smart grid technologies for distributed generation control offers numerous advantages over earlier control systems. Care needs to be taken to choose the correct protocol for the task at hand. This paper compares two systems used for the remote monitoring of anaerobic digesters including their relative costs, bandwidth requirements, implementation, and maintenance issues. The systems discussed are Internet protocol based system using HTTP and FTP, and a system based on DNP3. The goal of the work is to demonstrate that the application of standard SCADA protocols to modern distributed generation technology can be easily accomplished without large investment in new software or technologies, while still enabling web interoperability.