Hyland Highway Landfill Gas System Upgrade (Stage 1)

Hyland Highway Landfill Gas System Upgrade (Stage 1) is a landfill gas capture and electricity generation project located at Loy Yang, approximately 10km south of Traralgon in the Latrobe Valley of Victoria. Registered in November 2017, the project is situated at an active municipal landfill facility. While the specific project area size is not published, the surrounding Latrobe Valley region is heavily characterized by brown coal power generation, forestry operations, and agricultural grazing.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve capturing the methane emitted by decaying organic waste and using it to run turbines or generators. This process not only prevents methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas, from freely venting into the atmosphere but also displaces the use of fossil-fuel grid electricity.

The local environment of the Latrobe Valley experiences a temperate, moderate-to-high rainfall climate. Soils in the region generally consist of topsoil loams and heavy sub-surface clays, famously underlain by extensive brown coal seams.

This project operates by upgrading an existing gas collection system to more efficiently capture and combust emissions generated from both legacy and non-legacy waste at the facility. Managed by the Latrobe City Council, the site features a 900kW biogas generator that produces around 7,000 MWh of clean energy annually. This output successfully covers over 80% of the Council's electricity needs, saving them between $600,000 and $900,000 a year in retail energy costs while reducing overall municipal emissions by an estimated 13,000 tonnes of CO2e annually. The project's impressive circular economy benefits led to its recognition as a finalist in the Premier's Sustainability Awards. In August 2021, the project's methodology was officially updated from the 2015 rules to the 2021 Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas Determination.