Wyemo Biogas Project

The Wyemo Biogas Project is an agricultural waste emissions reduction project located in the locality of Wyemo, approximately 40km north-west of Warwick and south of Leyburn in the Southern Downs region of Queensland. Registered in May 2022 by Cefn Energy Pty Ltd, the project is situated within the prolific agricultural belt of the Darling Downs. The region is renowned for its intensive animal husbandry, including piggeries and feedlots, alongside broadacre cropping and grazing.

The project operates under the Animal Effluent Management methodology (2019), which incentivizes the capture and destruction of methane generated from decomposing animal manure. In standard practice, organic waste from piggeries is often stored in open anaerobic ponds, where it releases significant amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere. This project involves the installation of a new facility, likely a covered anaerobic lagoon or engineered digester, to capture this gas. Once captured, the methane is combusted (flared) or used to generate renewable electricity, converting the methane into less harmful carbon dioxide and water while producing energy for on-site operations.

The surrounding environment of the Southern Downs typically features a warm temperate climate with summer-dominant rainfall averaging between 600mm and 700mm annually. The soils in the broader region include fertile cracking clays (Vertosols) and traprock soils, supporting the area's diverse agricultural output. Cefn Energy is a subsidiary of the Cefn Group, a prominent Australian family-owned pork producer. The company has a history of integrating renewable energy into their operations, having previously installed biogas plants and solar arrays across their breeder and grower farms to reduce reliance on grid electricity and lower their carbon footprint.