Rivalea Bungowannah Piggery Biogas Project

Rivalea Bungowannah Piggery Biogas Project is an animal effluent management project located at Bungowannah on the Riverina Highway, approximately 16km northwest of Albury in New South Wales. It was registered in January 2013. While the exact project area is not specified, it is situated at an established agricultural site operated by JBS Pork Australia (formerly Rivalea).

Animal effluent management projects involve treating agricultural waste, such as pig manure, in covered anaerobic lagoons. The captured biogas, which is rich in methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, is then combusted using a flare or generator. This process destroys the methane and typically generates renewable electricity for the facility, which acts to significantly reduce the site's overall carbon footprint.

The Bungowannah area and the broader Riverina region are well known for diverse agricultural activities, including intensive livestock farming, grazing, and cropping. The region typically experiences a temperate climate with moderate rainfall, recording roughly 560mm to 600mm annually. Soils in this Murray River floodplain area are generally characterised by red-brown earths, clay loams, and alluvial soils.

This project transitioned from an earlier CFI emissions destruction methodology and was set up to show how biogas technology can be used to improve the sustainability of intensive pork production. The Bungowannah site consumes between 75-100 ML of groundwater per annum and uses large evaporation ponds and covered lagoons to handle its wastewater. By capturing and destroying methane to power generators that provide electricity for the site, the broader Rivalea biogas initiatives have reportedly avoided well over 100,000 tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions since their inception.