Berrybank Farm - Methane to Energy Project

Berrybank Farm - Methane to Energy Project is a methane destruction project located at Windermere, approximately 15 kilometres west of Ballarat in Victoria. It was registered in March 2015 and operates on the sprawling 2,500-acre (approximately 1,000 ha) Berrybank Farm property.

Destruction of methane from piggeries using engineered biodigesters involves capturing and combusting biogas generated by piggery manure. As a standard requirement of the methodology, these projects must install engineered biodigesters to actively collect the methane, avoiding the use of standard open anaerobic lagoons, which is then combusted to prevent potent greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere and to generate usable thermal and electrical power.

The Windermere and Ballarat region is well known for broadacre agriculture, heavily supporting cropping (such as winter wheat and canola), grazing, and intensive pig farming. Situated on the Victorian Volcanic Plains, the area typically experiences moderate to high, reliable rainfall and features fertile, basalt-derived clay soils.

This project is the centrepiece of a "Total Waste Management System" originally pioneered by the proponents, Charles I.F.E. Proprietary Limited, which embraces a strictly "waste nothing" farming philosophy. The farm, which is home to approximately 20,000 pigs, uses the captured biogas to fuel a state-of-the-art combined heat and power unit. This setup generates enough electricity to run the farm in parallel with the main grid, saving the family operation hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in energy bills. In addition to mitigating emissions, the system separates solid waste to be sold or used as composted fertiliser for the property's crops, while dramatically reducing local groundwater consumption. The project was officially contracted under the ACCU scheme in January 2016 and its carbon abatement contract (CAC102330) has since been completed.