Capture and Combustion of Landfill Gas at Dunmore Recycling and Waste Disposal Depot, Shellharbour City Council

Capture and Combustion of Landfill Gas at Dunmore Recycling and Waste Disposal Depot is an electricity generation from landfill gas project located at Dunmore, approximately 3.5 kilometres southwest of Shellharbour in the Illawarra region of New South Wales. Registered in January 2014, the project operates within an active waste disposal and recycling facility of an unknown exact area size, though it encompasses the operational footprint of the depot. The regional land use is dominated by waste management and resource recovery, surrounded by coastal wetlands, sand quarrying operations, and historical coastal grazing lands. Environmentally, the coastal Illawarra area is classified as a high rainfall region, typically receiving between 1,000 mm and 1,200 mm of precipitation annually, with local soils heavily characterised by coastal alluvial sands, sandy loams, and estuarine clays.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve the installation of an active biogas collection system to capture methane-rich gas emitted by decomposing organic legacy and non-legacy waste. The standard requirements for this methodology dictate that the captured landfill gas, which would otherwise vent into the atmosphere, must be combusted in a generator to produce renewable electricity. Because methane is approximately 28 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas, its combustion and conversion significantly reduce atmospheric emissions while actively displacing fossil-fuelled electricity on the grid.

The project has an evolving history, having transitioned through multiple methodology variations to maximize its abatement potential. Originally registered under a 2012 legacy waste methodology by the Council of the City of Shellharbour, the proponent role was officially transferred to LGI Limited, a leading Australian biogas recovery company, in October 2020. LGI initially installed a bespoke biogas flaring system at the Dunmore site in 2013 and has progressively upgraded operations, culminating in a transition to the 2021 electricity generation methodology. The project successfully delivered on a Clean Energy Regulator Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC742375) initially contracted in May 2016, which is now completed. Furthermore, the host site, the Dunmore Resource Recovery Centre, is a highly regarded facility that has won industry awards for its operational excellence and community-focused waste diversion initiatives.