Mugga Lane Landfill Gas Upgrade Project

Mugga Lane Landfill Gas Upgrade Project is a landfill gas electricity generation project located at the Mugga Lane Resource Management Centre in Symonston, approximately 10km south of Canberra's central business district in the Australian Capital Territory. It was registered in June 2020 and operates over the footprint of the ACT's primary landfill site. The surrounding regional land use primarily consists of waste management and light industrial zones, which are buffered by nature reserves and pastoral grazing lands.

Electricity generation from landfill gas projects involve the installation or upgrade of a network of pipes and extraction wells within a landfill to capture biogas (predominantly methane) produced by decaying organic waste. Instead of venting this potent greenhouse gas into the atmosphere, the captured methane is combusted in internal combustion engines to generate renewable electricity. To generate carbon credits under this methodology, standard requirements dictate that the project must achieve gas capture and destruction above regulatory baselines and standard industry practices, thereby demonstrating genuine additional greenhouse gas abatement.

The Canberra environment features a temperate to semi-arid climate known for moderate and relatively reliable rainfall throughout the year. The local soils in the Symonston and Mugga Lane areas are generally shallow, stony clays on the elevated ridges, transitioning into deeper clay loams and alluvial soils in the surrounding valleys.

Operated by LGI Limited, this project has transformed a brownfield landfill site into a highly efficient renewable energy hub. Initially commissioned with a 4MW power station, LGI successfully doubled the site's biogas recovery in its first year of operation. The generation capacity was subsequently expanded to 6MW with a 20MW grid connection. The facility is currently being upgraded into a dispatchable "renewable hybrid" by integrating a 12MW/24MWh Tesla battery energy storage system (BESS), allowing it to stabilize the local electricity grid and provide enough clean power for over 10,800 homes annually. In June 2026, the facility's innovative integrated design won LGI the top IPWEA Engineering Excellence Award.