Darwin Landfill Gas Project

Darwin Landfill Gas Project is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at the Shoal Bay Waste Management Facility, approximately 15km northeast of central Darwin in the Northern Territory. It was registered in August 2012, and while the specific project area size is unpublished, it covers the expansive active and inactive footprint of the Shoal Bay landfill. Operating on municipal waste management land, the broader Top End regional land use includes tropical coastal reserves, horticulture, and pastoral activities.

Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas projects involve installing robust gas collection infrastructure to capture methane emitted by the decomposition of legacy and non-legacy organic waste. The captured methane, which is a highly potent greenhouse gas up to 28 times more harmful than carbon dioxide, is continually combusted in engines or flares to produce baseload renewable electricity. This methodology ensures the destruction of methane, preventing it from entering the atmosphere while offsetting fossil fuel use.

The Darwin region experiences a tropical monsoon climate, characterised by high annual rainfall averaging approximately 1,700mm, the vast majority of which falls during the intense summer wet season. The soils in the Top End region are predominantly earthy Red Kandosols, with weakly developed sandy soils (Tenosols) and seasonally inundated Hydrosols typically found in the surrounding coastal floodplains.

The Shoal Bay Bioenergy Facility, managed and operated by LMS Energy, was a pioneering site, notable for being the first landfill-biogas-to-energy facility in Australia's tropical north when it was commissioned in 2005. LMS Energy holds a long-term contract with the City of Darwin granting them exclusive rights to the landfill gas until October 2034. Generating over 121,000 megawatt hours since its inception, the facility produces enough renewable energy to power up to 1,400 local homes around the clock. The project has successfully transitioned through several method variations to maintain compliance, and a major carbon abatement contract (CAC783640) for the site was successfully completed with the Commonwealth in April 2022.