Glenorchy Landfill Gas Abatement Facility

Glenorchy Landfill Gas Abatement Facility is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at the Jackson Street Landfill in Glenorchy, approximately 7km northwest of the Hobart central business district in Tasmania. It was registered in August 2013 and covers an unknown specific area, although it operates within the active and legacy footprints of the municipal waste facility. The general land use in the immediate region is urban, commercial, and industrial, nestled against the forested foothills of Mount Wellington (kunanyi). The regional climate is temperate with moderate rainfall, while local native soils are predominantly podzolic, derived from underlying Jurassic dolerite and Permian mudstone, though the site itself is heavily modified by continuous landfill operations.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involves capturing methane, a potent greenhouse gas produced by the anaerobic decomposition of legacy and non-legacy organic waste, using a network of extraction wells and pipes. Under standard methodology requirements, the captured gas is rigorously metered for volume and methane concentration before being combusted in an internal combustion engine. This destroys the methane and generates electricity, preventing the greenhouse gas from entering the atmosphere while simultaneously creating renewable energy.

This project transitioned from earlier, revoked Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) methods, reflecting its long-standing operation as Australia's carbon market has evolved. The facility is currently managed by LMS Energy Pty Ltd, having seen participant variations over the years that included AGL Energy Services and Sustainable Energy Infrastructure Trust. Through a fixed-delivery Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC198503), the project successfully delivered 167,000 ACCUs to the Commonwealth before the contract was completed in February 2023. Local reporting on the Jackson Street Landfill indicates that this gas capture system is highly effective, extracting 80-90% of the site's methane and converting it into enough energy to power over 1,700 local homes.