Powering Bunya to state first

Moreton Bay City Council and green energy provider LGI have teamed-up to launch a Queensland first at Bunya.

LGI will take renewable energy, generated from landfill biogas, from an onsite storage and feed it into the local power grid.

This carbon-cutting collaboration at Council’s Bunya Waste Management Facility will use a battery energy storage system (BESS).

To date, the partnership at Bunya, Caboolture and Dakabin landfill sites, has seen LGI reduce Council’s CO2e emissions by more than 1.25 million tonnes.

And in the past eight years, more than 132 million cubic metres of biogas has been captured at the three sites, with 198 GWh of renewable energy generated.

The three power projects developed and operated by LGI have the capacity to produce enough renewable energy to power 10,000 homes each year.

“With the addition of a Tesla Megapack battery at our Bunya Waste Management Facility, we’re able to control the flow of that energy into the grid to create a more stable power supply at peak times,” Mayor Peter Flannery said.

“It creates a new income stream for Council, which allows us to invest more into our community and we’ll also continue to invest more into our waste management services and recycling education programs.

“Green technology like this is a win-win for both the environment and ratepayers.”

LGI Chief Executive Officer Jarryd Doran said Queensland’s first onsite battery storage, connected to a power station using biogas from landfill, is a game changer.

“We expect the National Energy Market to continue its volatility, with negative prices in the day and high-to-extreme pricing in times of high demand,” he said.

“The market needs clean, reliable, affordable power.

“LGI can now generate and store or dispatch and distribute renewable energy in seconds from the Bunya Waste Management Facility when, and where it is needed.

“The supply of consistent and dispatchable (baseload and peaking) renewable power into the local grid helps stabilise the local electricity system.”

The onsite battery milestone has been two years in the making and is an extension of the Bunya Renewable Power Station LGI built in 2018.

Connecting a Jenbacher 312 engine with a battery to the distribution grid with active voltage management is also a world first.

The project will allow LGI to rollout batteries at other renewable energy sites in Moreton Bay, Brisbane, Toowoomba, Gladstone, Maryborough, NSW and the ACT.

LGI’s carbon-cutting blueprint will also accelerate Queensland towards its renewable targets, including 50 per cent renewable energy by 2030.