The Malabar biomethane project is Australia’s first biomethane-to-gas project and will see thousands of Sydney homes and businesses using renewable green gas for cooking, heating and hot water.
Jemena has signed an agreement with Sydney Water to generate biomethane at the Malabar Wastewater Treatment Plant, in South Sydney. The zero-carbon emission, high-quality biomethane gas will be injected into Jemena’s NSW gas distribution network.
Owned and operated by Jemena, the network delivers approximately 89 petajoules of natural gas to residential, commercial and industrial customers.
Similarly, the NSW network is the largest in Australia with 1.4 million customers. Therefore, to meet the NSW government’s net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050 while maintaining the supply of low cost heating to customers, sources of renewable gas such as biomethane and hydrogen are crucial.
The $14 million project is jointly funded by Jemena ($8.1 million) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) who will provide up to $5.9 million in grant funding.
The Malabar project is anticipated to remove 5,000 tonnes of carbon emissions and potentially 11,000 tonnes if scaled up to its full potential. This makes the project a significant contributor to the NSW government’s stage one net-zero plan to cut emissions by 35 per cent by 2030.
The facility is anticipated to produce the first biomethane for injection into the Jemena Gas Network. The project is set to have commenced construction in the first quarter of 2022 and is to be completed within the third quarter of the same year.
The project has seen multiple companies and bodies including Jemena, Sydney Water, Zinfra, ARENA and now Enscope collaborate to bring the project to life.
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