Tahmoor Waste Coal Mine Gas Power Station

Tahmoor Waste Coal Mine Gas Power Station is an Industrial Fugitives project located adjacent to the Tahmoor Colliery, immediately south of the township of Tahmoor in New South Wales, approximately 75km southwest of Sydney. It was registered in December 2021, and while the exact project area size is unknown, it encompasses the physical footprint of the roughly 7MW power station.

The project operates under the Coal Mine Waste Gas methodology, which allows proponents to earn Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) by capturing and destroying the methane component of coal mine waste gas. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that would normally be vented into the atmosphere for underground safety reasons. The method's standard requirements involve converting this gas to carbon dioxide via flaring, flameless oxidation, or electricity generation.

The surrounding Tahmoor region, situated within the Wollondilly Shire, is characterized by a mix of peri-urban development, coal mining operations, and agricultural land used primarily for grazing and poultry farming. The local environment has a humid subtropical climate with moderate to high rainfall averaging between 800mm and 900mm annually. Soils in the immediate vicinity are heavily influenced by the Wianamatta Shale groups, producing reactive clay soils (such as Bringelly and Ashfield Shales) as well as sandy loams derived from Hawkesbury Sandstone in the more rugged terrain.

This specific facility operates as a transitioning displacement electricity production project, utilizing devices that convert the captured waste gas into electricity. Interestingly, this project is classified as "former RET", meaning the facility previously generated Large-scale Generation Certificates (LGCs) under the Renewable Energy Target before successfully transitioning into the ACCU scheme. It now earns credits for both the destruction of methane and the displacement of more carbon-intensive grid electricity, effectively mitigating underground mining safety hazards while simultaneously reducing the operation's carbon footprint.