Enabling Victoria’s organic waste-to-energy evolution
At a glance
Working on landmark organic waste-to-energy projects for Barwon Water, GHD is helping Victoria reduce the need for landfills and turn organic waste into useful resources.
The challenge
The development of local organic waste-to-energy projects has been a major stride in realising wider economic, environmental and social benefits for water utilities and their respective regions.
The move to use organic waste to produce resources, including electricity, hot water and soil enhancers will ensure less waste, creating a circular economy by diverting organics from landfill and reducing waste and energy costs.
These projects are also closely aligned to the Victorian Government’s Recycling Victoria policy and action plan which aims to encourage the development of waste-to-energy facilities that process organic waste.
BARWON WATER RENEWABLE ORGANICS NETWORKS
Barwon Water is a regional Victorian Water Authority with a strong history in the development of innovative and sustainable solutions to complex operational challenges.
In partnership with six municipal councils as well as major export manufacturers, Barwon Water is developing two Renewable Organics Networks within both the Geelong and Colac regions. The projects will transform organic municipal and trade waste into dispatchable renewable energy and agricultural soil enhancers. In doing so, Barwon Water will be helping to create a circular economy for the region’s organic waste, enabling sustainable waste management. The projects will reduce the volume of waste sent to landfills, address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as containing Barwon Water customer bills by reducing the energy and waste costs incurred by councils and Barwon Water through waste and water infrastructure operating costs.
Our response
The project in Colac is currently underway and is scheduled for completion by the end of 2022. The project in the G21 region in partnership with the five regional councils and neighbouring Wyndham City Council in is in its early stages of development and based on current milestone dates, the project is estimated to be completed by the end of 2023.
GHD has been supporting Barwon Water with both of these projects, having delivered the concept design and business case for the Colac project as well as currently being engaged for the concept development and preliminary commercial assessment of the facility in the G21 region.
The impact
The development of local organic waste-to-energy projects has been identified as a major way of achieving Barwon Water’s Strategy 2030 targets of 100 percent renewable electricity by 2025 and zero net emissions by 2030.