Hallam Landfill Gas Project

The Hallam Landfill Gas Project is a waste-to-energy operation located at the Hallam Road Landfill in Hampton Park, approximately 35 kilometres southeast of Melbourne’s Central Business District in Victoria. Registered in November 2012, the project is situated within a major industrial precinct that borders the residential suburbs of Hallam and Narre Warren. The site is one of Victoria's largest landfill facilities, receiving significant volumes of municipal and commercial waste from the surrounding metropolitan region.

Operated by LMS Energy in partnership with the landfill owner, Veolia, the project functions under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative, Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas) Methodology Determination 2021. This methodology incentivises the installation of gas collection systems, comprising vertical wells and horizontal pipes, to extract methane generated by decomposing organic waste. Instead of allowing this potent greenhouse gas to vent into the atmosphere, the project captures and combusts it in specialised engines to generate renewable electricity. This process converts the methane into less harmful carbon dioxide while feeding power into the local grid.

The Hallam region is characterised by a temperate climate with an average annual rainfall of approximately 750mm to 800mm. While the project sits atop a highly engineered waste management facility, the surrounding natural soil profile is historically defined as "Hallam loam," a grey silty loam overlying clay subsoils derived from Silurian sedimentary rock. These heavy clay soils are typical of Melbourne’s southeastern growth corridor.

A notable aspect of this project is its longevity and operational scale; it creates enough renewable energy to power approximately 15,000 homes annually. The project has transitioned through several regulatory frameworks, moving from the original 'CFI' legacy waste method to the 2015 determination, and finally to the 2021 electricity generation method. It successfully completed a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC143500) in late 2021. In recent years, the site has been subject to significant regulatory scrutiny regarding odour management, prompting upgrades to the gas extraction infrastructure to ensure environmental compliance.