Capture and Combustion of Landfill Gas from Saltwater Creek Landfill, Maryborough, QLD

Capture and Combustion of Landfill Gas from Saltwater Creek Landfill is a waste sector project located at the Saltwater Creek Landfill, approximately 4km north of the Maryborough town centre in Queensland. Registered in December 2013, the project is operated by LGI Limited in partnership with the Fraser Coast Regional Council. While the coordinates provided in the project data point to the general Maryborough locality, the actual facility is situated on Saltwater Creek Road, surrounded by a mix of industrial zones and rural residential areas typical of the Fraser Coast region.

The project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative, Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas) Methodology Determination 2021. This methodology credits emissions reductions achieved by capturing methane, a potent greenhouse gas released from decomposing organic waste, and combusting it to generate electricity. By converting methane into carbon dioxide (which has a significantly lower global warming potential) and displacing fossil-fuel-generated power from the grid, the project generates Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs). The facility was originally commissioned in 2016 with a 1MW capacity and was expanded to 1.7MW in 2019 to utilize increased gas flows.

The Maryborough region experiences a subtropical climate with variable, summer-dominant rainfall averaging around 1166mm annually. The local soil landscape typically features Podosols, sandy, low-fertility soils often associated with the coastal "wallum" country found in this part of Wide Bay. Historically, the broader Fraser Coast region is known for sugarcane cultivation, grazing, and timber forestry, although the immediate project site is dedicated to waste management and resource recovery.

An interesting aspect of this project is its long regulatory history; it transitioned from the original Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI) schemes through to the 2015 and eventually the 2021 methodology. The project held a carbon abatement contract with the Commonwealth (CAC342427) which was successfully completed in February 2022, meaning it now generates ACCUs that can be sold on the spot market or to private buyers. LGI Limited highlights this site as a commercially viable example of turning a regional landfill's liability (biogas) into a dispatchable renewable energy asset.