Goulburn Bioenergy Project

The Goulburn Bioenergy Project is a wastewater treatment project located at the Southern Meats abattoir, approximately 4km north of the Goulburn CBD in the Southern Tablelands of New South Wales. Registered in October 2015, the project was originally developed by Quantum Power (later ReNu Energy) before the participant role transitioned to SM Project Company Pty Ltd, a related entity of the abattoir owners. The facility is situated within a region heavily defined by pastoral activities, specifically sheep grazing, which directly supports the abattoir's operations.

The project operates under the Domestic, Commercial and Industrial Wastewater methodology. Standard operations for this project type involve replacing open anaerobic lagoons, which historically allowed methane to vent freely into the atmosphere, with covered anaerobic digesters. In this specific case, organic waste from the sheep processing facility is treated in a covered lagoon that acts as a giant bladder. The captured biogas is then directed to dual-fuel generators to produce electricity, offsetting a significant portion of the site's grid energy consumption, or flared when generation is not required.

Environmentally, the Goulburn region is characterized by a temperate oceanic climate with cool winters and warm summers. Rainfall is moderate, averaging around 640mm annually, supporting the surrounding grazing pastures. The local landscape features soils typical of the Southern Tablelands, often consisting of clays and loams derived from sedimentary and granite rock formations.

A notable aspect of this project was its funding support from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), which provided a $2.1 million grant to demonstrate the viability of the "Build Own Operate Maintain" (BOOM) model in the red meat industry. While the project successfully generated power for nearly a decade, the carbon abatement contract (CAC102337) associated with the project was terminated in September 2024, marking the end of its government-contracted crediting period.