Birkdale Landfill Gas Project

Birkdale Landfill Gas Project is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at Birkdale, approximately 20km east of Brisbane in Queensland. It was registered in November 2012 and operates over an unknown area size, though it sits on a former engineered municipal landfill that historically accepted around a million tonnes of waste.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve capturing the methane-rich gas produced by decomposing organic matter in a landfill and combusting it in a generator to produce electricity. This process prevents methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, from entering the atmosphere, converting it to less harmful carbon dioxide while generating renewable energy from both legacy and non-legacy waste.

The surrounding Redland City region is largely urbanised but features significant coastal recreation areas and conservation zones. The local climate is characterised by high subtropical rainfall, and the underlying soils around the engineered landfill feature low-permeability clays originally designed to seal the site's base.

The project has transitioned through multiple methodologies over its lifespan, moving from a 2012 legacy waste method to the 2015 Landfill Gas method, and finally to the 2021 Electricity Generation determination. A government carbon abatement contract (CAC362004) awarded to LMS Energy in April 2015, which included Birkdale and several other landfill gas sites, was successfully completed in April 2022. Today, the broader landfill site is undergoing extensive environmental rehabilitation by the Redland City Council, transforming the former waste mountain into the Judy Holt Recreation Reserve. This ongoing $10.3 million remediation includes capping the site and actively managing leachate to protect the nearby Ramsar-listed wetlands and Tarradarrapin Creek.