Wasleys Biomethane Project

Wasleys Biomethane Project is an animal effluent management project located near the small township of Wasleys, approximately 60 kilometers north of Adelaide in South Australia. Registered in December 2025, the project operates within the agricultural heartland of the Adelaide Plains, a region characterized by intensive livestock production and cereal cropping. The facility is designed to capture and treat effluent from a large-scale animal production site, likely the significant piggery operations known to exist in the district, preventing methane from being released into the atmosphere.

The project operates under the Animal Effluent Management methodology, which rewards proponents for capturing methane generated by decomposing manure. Standard requirements for this project type typically involve the installation of covered anaerobic lagoons or engineered digesters to harvest biogas. Uniquely, the Wasleys Biomethane Project goes beyond simple combustion for electricity; it includes infrastructure to upgrade the captured biogas into biomethane. This purified "renewable natural gas" can then be used as a direct substitute for fossil natural gas, either injected into the grid or used onsite.

Environmentally, the Wasleys region experiences a Mediterranean climate with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers. The landscape is defined by its fertile but distinctively reactive clay soils, often locally referred to as "Bay of Biscay" soils, which swell when wet and crack deeply when dry. These soil conditions historically support the region's "wheat-sheep" mixed farming belt. The project represents a growing trend in South Australia where agricultural by-products are leveraged to contribute to the state's renewable energy mix, utilizing the nearby gas infrastructure that services the Light Regional Council area.