South Cardup Landfill Gas Project

South Cardup Landfill Gas Project is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at the South Cardup Landfill, approximately 40 to 45 kilometres southeast of the Perth CBD in Western Australia. It was registered in August 2012 and covers an unknown area within the physical boundaries of the landfill.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve installing a network of extraction wells to capture methane-rich biogas generated by decomposing organic waste. Standard requirements for this methodology dictate that instead of venting or simply flaring this potent greenhouse gas, the captured methane must be combusted in a generator to produce renewable electricity. To comply, projects must accurately meter both the volume of methane destroyed and the electricity exported to the grid to correctly calculate carbon abatement. The project continues to capture and combust gas generated at the site from both legacy and non-legacy waste.

The South Cardup area sits along the western edge of the Yilgarn Block on the Darling Scarp, near the town of Byford. Local land use is a mix of expanding peri-urban residential developments, semi-rural agriculture, conservation reserves, and historical extractive industries. The region experiences a Mediterranean climate with moderate to high rainfall, typically ranging from 800mm to over 1000mm annually depending on scarp elevation. Soils in this transitional zone feature a mix of Quaternary coastal sands, lateritic gravels, clays, and shale. The landfill itself was originally established inside a former shale pit.

An interesting note about this project is its evolution alongside the landfill's lifecycle. Historically, the broader site faced some environmental and operational scrutiny, including a 2010 investigation after waste leaked from containment tanks into a local creek. The South Cardup Landfill eventually stopped receiving incoming waste and reached operational completion in late 2016, though historical waste continues to generate capture-ready gas. On the carbon front, the project transitioned from earlier revoked Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) methods and was officially varied to the 2021 electricity generation methodology in February 2022. The project successfully completed a government contract (CAC143500) in October 2021. Most recently, in May 2026, the project proponent was updated from LMS Energy Pty Ltd to VELMS JOINT VENTURE PTY LTD.