Unitywater Kawana STP Cogeneration Project

Unitywater Kawana STP Cogeneration Project is an Industrial and Commercial Emissions Reduction project located at the Kawana Sewage Treatment Plant in Warana, approximately 10km south of Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland. It was registered in September 2026, and while the exact project area size is unknown, the operations take place within the physical footprint of the existing utility facility.

The Industrial and Commercial Emissions Reduction methodology aims to improve energy efficiency and reduce greenhouse gas process emissions by modifying, removing, or replacing existing emissions-producing equipment. For this specific project, the activities focus on co-generation and tri-generation, which involves generating and providing electricity to existing equipment that would otherwise draw power from the local electricity grid.

The Warana and broader Sunshine Coast coastal strip is a highly urbanised region, known primarily for residential and commercial land uses, though historical land use further inland includes agriculture and forestry. The area has a humid subtropical climate characterised by high rainfall, averaging around 1,500mm annually. Because of its direct coastal geography, the local soils are predominantly deep, fast-draining coastal sands.

An interesting aspect of this carbon project is its integration into a major $56 million infrastructure upgrade of the Kawana Sewage Treatment Plant, which expanded the facility's capacity to serve up to 200,000 people. The plant features a newly installed 330kW cogeneration system that captures methane gas directly from an anaerobic digester. The system dehumidifies and treats this biogas, then converts it into electricity, functioning as a sustainable waste-to-energy solution that significantly reduces the plant's operational costs and reliance on conventional fossil-fuel grid electricity.