Lithgow Landfill Gas Project

Lithgow Landfill Gas Project is a landfill gas capture and abatement project located at the Lithgow Solid Waste Facility, approximately 140km west-northwest of Sydney in the Central Tablelands of New South Wales. It was registered in April 2025. While the exact project area size is not specified, it operates directly within the footprint of the local municipal landfill. The broader Lithgow region is characterised by a mix of land uses including coal mining, forestry, and livestock grazing. The area experiences moderate to high rainfall, and its soils are typically sandy loams and clays derived from sandstone and shale in the Sydney Basin.

The project operates under the Electricity Generation from Landfill Gas Methodology (2021). Projects under this method involve installing a gas collection system to capture methane-rich biogas generated by decomposing organic waste (both legacy and non-legacy). By combusting this gas, either through an electricity generator or an enclosed flare, the project prevents potent methane from venting into the atmosphere, converting it into less harmful carbon dioxide.

This specific initiative was delivered through a partnership between Lithgow City Council and the project proponent, LGI Limited. Phase one of the project involved LGI installing a custom biogas management system at minimal cost to ratepayers, which included an enclosed LGI 500 biogas flare, drilling 30 new gas wells, and connecting over 1,100 meters of piping. Unflared methane previously accounted for half of the council's carbon emissions. The project has proven highly effective, capturing over 789,000 cubic meters of harmful biogas and reducing carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) emissions by 7,491 tonnes in just its first two months of operation. While the system currently flares the gas, the generation of Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) makes the abatement commercially viable and could potentially enable a future biogas-to-power facility on the site.