Around 1,200 homes in Queensland’s Redland City Council are now being powered by renewable energy, generated by a local landfill. Commissioned in April 2010, the energy facility captures gas generated by organic waste breaking down at Council’s Birkdale landfill and converts it to green energy.
The gas is captured from the site through a network of below ground wells and interconnecting pipes. It then passes through a 750 kilowatt engine, where it is converted to electricity.This energy is fed into the electricity network and sold by TRUenergy.
Redland Mayor Melva Hobson officially launched the facility in February.”We know from creating our Redlands 2030 Community Plan last year how important sustainability is to the people of the Redlands – particularly when it comes to energy use – so it’s great to have a facility like this in our City creating green energy,” Councillor Hobson said. “It’s one of the ways we’re working to achieve our community’s vision for greater use of renewable energy in the Redlands, and adopting leading waste practices.”
The project, which was designed, installed and now operated by LMS Generation, generates more than 16,000 kilowatts of renewable electricity every day. The Queensland and national target is to reduce community greenhouse production by 60 per cent by 2050 from 2000 levels.
“Having this facility in place means our landfill is reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 21,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent,” Mayor Hobson said.
The Birkdale Landfill Renewable Energy Facility is fully accredited with:
- the Office of Renewable Energy Regulator
- the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal
- the National GreenPower Accreditation Program.
For further information contact Redland’s waste hotline on 1300 362 036 or LMS Generation on (08) 8357 2777.
