Kilcoy Bioenergy Boiler Project

Kilcoy Bioenergy Boiler Project is an industrial energy efficiency and fuel switching project located at the Kilcoy Global Foods beef processing facility, approximately 2km east of the township of Kilcoy and 100km northwest of Brisbane in Southeast Queensland. It was registered in March 2022 and operates within an existing industrial site.

Industrial and Commercial Emissions Reduction (ICER) projects generate carbon abatement by upgrading existing equipment or switching to lower-emission fuel sources. The methodology credits abatement by calculating the difference in emissions between the new, more efficient system and the baseline emissions that would have occurred had the facility continued using its original fossil fuels.

The surrounding Kilcoy and Somerset Region area is known for intensive grazing, agriculture, and forestry, which supports a prominent local cattle and beef processing industry. The region experiences a sub-tropical, high rainfall climate (averaging around 1,000mm annually) and features fertile alluvial and clay soils, including black, brown, and grey vertosols.

This project was set up to replace an existing coal-fired boiler with a new, high-efficiency biomass boiler. By transitioning from coal to renewable biomass, specifically organic materials such as wood by-products and plant waste, the facility aims to eliminate its reliance on coal for steam generation and capture waste heat for re-use. Interestingly, the project varied its methodology in December 2023, transitioning from the 2015 Industrial Electricity and Fuel Efficiency determination to the updated 2021 ICER method. Combined with a separate biogas cogeneration project on the same site, this boiler upgrade is expected to reduce the facility's carbon footprint by approximately 14,000 tonnes of CO2 per year, helping Kilcoy Global Foods become the first large-scale beef processor in Australia to achieve certified Carbon Neutral status under the Australian Government's Climate Active standard.