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 a landfill gas management project located at Dunmore, approximately 5km south of Shellharbour and 20km south of Wollongong on the New South Wales south coast. Registered in January 2014 by LGI Limited and the Council of the City of Shellharbour, the project operates within the footprint of the active Dunmore Waste Facility. The surrounding regional land use is predominantly peri-urban and industrial, comprising coastal sand extraction operations, municipal waste management, environmental protection wetlands, and some coastal agricultural grazing.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve installing a network of vertical and horizontal gas wells to capture methane emitted from decomposing organic waste. Under the standard methodology requirements, this captured biogas is actively drawn from both legacy and non-legacy waste cells and combusted in an engine generator to produce renewable electricity. By capturing and combusting the methane, which is 28 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, the project drastically reduces the site's overall emissions while contributing to the energy grid.

Situated in the Illawarra region, the project environment experiences a coastal high rainfall climate. Given its location on a coastal plain closely bordering the Rocklow Creek wetlands and significant commercial sand extraction sites, the local soils are predominantly estuarine coastal sands, alluvial deposits, and sandy loams.

Originally registered under a revoked Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) method, the project initially utilized a standard flaring system where ACCUs provided the sole commercial revenue to make the small regional site viable. In 2022, the project updated its methodology determination to the 'Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas 2021' method, indicating a commercial transition towards converting the captured biogas into dispatchable power. The project secured a Carbon Abatement Contract (CAC742375) in May 2016, and successfully delivered 46,005 ACCUs to the Australian Commonwealth before the contract was officially fulfilled and completed in June 2023.