Ipswich Landfill Gas Project

Ipswich Landfill Gas Project is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located in the city of Ipswich, approximately 40km southwest of Brisbane in South East Queensland. It was registered in February 2013. The surrounding regional land use is a diverse mix of urban development, historical coal mining operations, peri-urban grazing, and major industrial waste management facilities.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve the installation of a gas collection system, comprising extraction wells and piping, to capture methane generated by the decomposition of organic waste in a landfill. This gas is then combusted in a generator to produce renewable electricity, thereby mitigating the release of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. Standard requirements for this methodology include operating the extraction system efficiently and continuously metering both the gas flow and the methane concentration to verify the exact volume of carbon abatement.

The Ipswich region features a sub-tropical climate classified by moderate to high rainfall, averaging around 800-900mm annually. Soils in the area typically consist of alluvial clays and sandy loams over sedimentary rock, characteristic of the local river plains and undulating terrain.

This project transitioned from a revoked Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) legacy waste method and continues to capture and combust gas generated at the landfill from both legacy and non-legacy waste. Between 2015 and 2022, it varied its methodology multiple times, ultimately moving to the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative - Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas) Methodology Determination 2021. The project successfully fulfilled a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC783640) with the Australian Government, which was contracted in April 2015 and completed in April 2022. The proponent, LMS Energy, operates significant bioenergy hubs in the Ipswich area (such as the Swanbank Renewable Energy Facility), converting captured landfill gas into base-load renewable electricity capable of powering thousands of local households.