Birkenhead additional wood firing project

Birkenhead additional wood firing project is an industrial fuel switching project located at the Adelaide Brighton Cement (now Adbri) facility in Birkenhead, approximately 14 kilometers northwest of the Adelaide CBD in South Australia. Registered in October 2015, this project operates within a major heavy industrial zone on the LeFevre Peninsula, near Port Adelaide. The facility itself is a large-scale cement manufacturing plant rather than a traditional land-based offset area.

The project operates under the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative, Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency) Methodology Determination 2015. This methodology generates credits by reducing the emissions intensity of industrial processes, typically through upgrading equipment or switching to lower-emission fuel sources. Specifically, this project involves substituting fossil fuels, such as natural gas, with alternative fuels derived from biomass, primarily construction and demolition wood waste and Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF), to fire the cement kilns.

Being an industrial site, the immediate "land use" is heavy manufacturing, though the wider Adelaide Plains region is characterized by a Mediterranean climate with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters (approx. 400-500mm rainfall). The soil profile of the surrounding peninsula consists largely of coastal sands and clays, although this is less relevant to the project's industrial nature.

A notable regulatory event occurred in July 2020, when the Clean Energy Regulator issued a notice requiring the relinquishment of 12,177 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) in relation to this project. The project was originally contracted in November 2015 and has since been marked as completed. Adbri has highlighted this facility's use of alternative fuels as a key component of its sustainability strategy, aiming to divert significant volumes of waste from landfill while reducing reliance on natural gas.