Shepparton Landfill Gas Project

Shepparton Landfill Gas Project is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at the Cosgrove Landfill, approximately 20km east of Shepparton in the Goulburn Valley region of Victoria. Registered in March 2013, the project covers an unspecified operational area within the active landfill site.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects operate by capturing methane-rich biogas emitted by decomposing legacy and non-legacy organic waste. Under the standard requirements of the methodology, proponents must actively run and maintain a gas collection system that extracts the landfill gas and funnels it into onsite generators. This process combusts the methane, preventing it from venting into the atmosphere as a highly potent greenhouse gas, and converts it into dispatchable, renewable electricity for the power grid.

The surrounding Goulburn Valley area is renowned as a highly productive agricultural hub, with regional land use predominantly focused on dairy farming, cropping, orchards, and irrigated pastures. The environment experiences a temperate to semi-arid climate with moderate average annual rainfall of approximately 446mm. Soils in the region are characteristically alluvial, largely featuring fertile red-brown earths (such as Lemnos loam) and heavy clay loams (such as Congupna clay loam), which perfectly support the extensive irrigation networks of the valley.

Also known commercially as the Cosgrove Bioenergy Facility, the project is owned and operated by LMS Energy in a long-standing partnership with the Greater Shepparton City Council. The facility features an installed capacity of 0.8 MW and generates around 4,990 MWh of renewable electricity each year, which is enough to power approximately 1,120 homes. This operation abates roughly 32,900 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e) annually. To maintain regulatory compliance and optimize crediting, the project has successfully transitioned across three separate ACCU methodology determinations (in 2012, 2015, and 2021). Furthermore, it was contracted by the Australian Government in April 2015 and has now successfully fulfilled and completed its fixed-delivery Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC362004).