Overview

The majority of emissions from conventional piggeries comes from the effluent (sewage) pond system on farms.  

This gives us a fantastic opportunity to transform waste into energy through biogas. By capturing the biogas from these ponds, we can potentially eliminate the need to buy electricity from the grid.

On this page

What is biogas?

Biogas is a renewable fuel. It’s produced by turning waste into energy.  

Up to 80% of farm emissions can be reduced by using biogas.


How is it produced?

Energy from biogas is produced by capturing, cleaning and burning the methane that is released by effluent (manure) breaking down.  
 
On a piggery, biogas can be captured by:  

  • Covering a primary effluent pond with an impermeable membrane or,  

  • Pumping it into a specially engineered system (tanks). It can then be used to reduced farm emissions by offsetting gas use and generating electricity

 

Running your farm on biogas 

If you run your farm on biogas you can: 

  • Contribute to reducing GHG emissions  

  • Reduce or eliminate the need for coal fired electricity  

  • Register and quality for the Emissions Reduction Fund project. This can help you with the payback period of biogas systems.

  • Note: if you wish to generate Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) from your project, you’ll  need to register before you sign any contracts or start the process of designing your system.

Emissions reduction fund

The Emissions Reduction Fund gives producers incentives to reduce emissions through the animal effluent management method.  

If you use this method, you may be eligible to be an animal effluent management project.  

For more information visit the Clean Energy Regulator.

Biogas Code of Practice

More and more Aussie pig producers are becoming interested in biogas technology. To address this, we’ve developed a risk-based Code of Practice.  

The Code can help you understand: 

  • A risk-based approach to biogas plants  

  • Covered anaerobic digestion systems 

  • Existing regulations 

  • Operation and safety

Code of Practice for On-farm Biogas Production and Use (Piggeries)

The Code of Practice (CoP) aims to provide a consistent framework and guidance for the safe design, construction, operation, and maintenance of biogas systems.
Gas Safety Management Template

This document complements the Biogas CoP which gives information on biogas safety of relevance to piggeries and proposes ways to reduce safety risk.
Biogas facts

Some key biogas facts:

A 500 sow, farrow-to-finish piggery has the potential to produce enough energy to power: 

  • 3.1 million 100watt globes for one hour 

  • Electricity to run 62 houses for one year

If combusted and destroyed, this would eliminate the equivalent of the fossil fuel GHG emissions from 458 Toyota Corollas travelling 20,000km/per year burning 7L/100km.

Factsheet: Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Piggeries