Bendigo Landfill Gas Project

The Bendigo Landfill Gas Project is a waste management and energy generation facility located at the Eaglehawk Landfill, approximately 7km northwest of the Bendigo CBD in Victoria. Registered in March 2013, the project operates within the boundary of the active landfill site on Upper California Gully Road. While the immediate project area is an engineered waste facility, the surrounding region is characterized by the historic goldfields landscape, featuring a mix of residential zones, box-ironbark forests, and semi-rural land used for light grazing and hobby farming.

This project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative, Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas) Methodology Determination 2021. This methodology rewards project proponents for capturing methane, a potent greenhouse gas released by decomposing organic waste, and combusting it in generators to produce electricity. By doing so, the project achieves two environmental benefits: it converts methane into less harmful carbon dioxide and exports renewable electricity to the grid, displacing power that would otherwise be generated by fossil fuels.

The environment in the Bendigo region is classified as temperate and semi-arid, with an average annual rainfall of approximately 530mm. The local terrain is typical of the Victorian Goldfields, consisting largely of sedimentary clay and shale soils which can be shallow and prone to compaction. These soil conditions are a key consideration for landfill engineering and the management of surface water runoff around the gas collection infrastructure.

LMS Energy, the project proponent, manages the gas collection system which captures emissions from both "legacy" waste (deposited before July 2012) and "non-legacy" waste. A notable achievement for this project is the successful completion of its carbon abatement contract (CAC362004) in April 2022, indicating it met its long-term delivery obligations to the Australian Government. The facility continues to generate baseload renewable energy, contributing to the City of Greater Bendigo's broader waste management and sustainability goals.