Biogas plans: Australia's poo-powered gas industry
Published Wed 13 Sep 2023
A new type of power taking scat to the stovetop is bubbling away in a quiet corner of Sydney’s eastern suburbs, with the first step taken in creating Australia’s poo-powered gas industry.
The Malabar Biomethane Injection Plant takes sewage flushed down toilets and sinks in homes across Sydney, purifies it and then injects it back as gas into the network for use in stoves and heaters.
The trial is tracking to produce enough gas to meet the yearly needs of 6300 homes.
The plant began injecting recycled gas into the network in June in an Australia first, with those behind the project confident it could become a new energy source used in homes across the country.
Biogas, as the product is called, has become increasingly popular across the world, with analysis of Denmark’s gas sector forecasting that 75 per cent of the country’s gas demand will be met by biogas by 2030.
By 2034, all Danish gas consumption is expected to be met by biogas.
Energy giant Jemena, who have partnered with Sydney Water on the trial at Malabar, is confident Australia could make a similar leap.
“What Jemena is trying to do here is start the industry,” Brent Davis, Jemena’s business development manager of renewable gas, said.
“You look overseas in Europe, you’ve got 20,000 biogas plans.
“We see this is the start of Australia moving towards what we can see overseas.”
Mr Davis said the opportunity with biogas was that its production could be based in metropolitan suburbs, instead of far-flung corners of the Australian outback where gas production plants often are.
“The current set up is our gas is being supplied from large gas basins a long way from where we consume our gas – for bio-methane there’s the opportunity to have multiple supply sources which are local to the area, supply local jobs, and contribute to the local economy,” he said.
Sydney Water’s production manager at Malabar, Fiona Copenam, said the trial was creating a win-win where wastewater was being turned into power.
Sydney Water supplies the wastewater which is sucked into the complex equipment which cleanses it and turns it into usable gas.
The amount of waste water used varies day to day – but on a rainy day, up to 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools are harnessed at the plant to create gas.
In Ms Copenam’s own words, “a large proportion of it is your poo”.
“The more we talk to people (about it), the more excited they seem to be to get on board with these concepts. There’s a lot of support for using our waste water as an energy resource,” she said.
“I don’t think (people think of) wastewater treatment plants necessarily as energy producers, so I think it’s great we can get this message out (that) there’s so many untapped resources in wastewater.”