Bathurst Waste Management Centre Landfill Gas Upgrade Project

Bathurst Waste Management Centre Landfill Gas Upgrade Project is a landfill gas upgrade project located at the Bathurst Waste Management Centre on Mount Panorama, approximately 4km southwest of the Bathurst city centre in New South Wales. It was registered in October 2023. While the specific project area in hectares is not publicly designated, the project encompasses the operational footprint of the active waste management facility.

Landfill gas projects involve the installation of infrastructure to extract methane, a highly potent greenhouse gas naturally produced by decomposing organic matter, and combust it, usually via a high-temperature flare or power generator. By converting the methane into carbon dioxide, the global warming potential of the emissions is drastically reduced. Standard requirements for an "upgrade" method dictate that Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) are only generated for the additional volume of gas captured and flared above a historical operational baseline, which for this site was determined to be 30%.

The broader Bathurst region is a major regional hub surrounded by diverse agricultural land uses, predominantly cattle and sheep grazing, alongside minor cropping and commercial forestry. The area generally experiences a moderate rainfall climate, largely due to a rain shadow effect caused by the nearby Mt Lambie and Oberon plateaux. Soils in the region vary but generally consist of yellow duplex soils, red podzolic soils, and sandy loams with clay subsoils that are moderately fertile but prone to significant erosion and gullying.

This project is a carbon-cutting partnership between the Bathurst Regional Council and LGI Limited, initiated to replace an older, failing gas extraction system originally constructed in 2007. Phase one of the upgrade was completed in early 2024 and involved drilling 38 new gas wells connected to a high-temperature 1,000 cubic metre per hour capacity flare. In its first year of operation, the upgraded system exceeded expectations by capturing 2.47 million cubic metres of biogas and reducing carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 23,000 tonnes, an environmental impact equivalent to taking 5,000 cars off the road for a year. The ACCUs generated provide the council with revenue and act as an essential step toward meeting their targeted 60% emissions reduction by 2035.