Inside AWE's Wentworth Project: Turning Regional Organic Waste into Renewable Energy
In the Sunraysia region of the Murray–Darling, AWE is developing its first Australian anaerobic digestion project — a facility at Wentworth, in far western New South Wales, designed to turn the organic waste of one of the country's most productive food and agricultural regions into renewable energy and products. Here's where the project sits today, what it's designed to do, and how it fits AWE's wider pipeline.
## Where the project is — and why there
The facility is located at Wentworth, NSW, on the New South Wales side of the Murray River. It's a deliberate choice of location. Wentworth sits beside Mildura, just across the Victorian border, at the centre of the Sunraysia horticultural belt — one of Australia's most concentrated sources of fruit, vegetable and food-processing waste. The project is designed to draw its feedstock from, and supply its products back into, this cross-border region spanning both Wentworth (NSW) and Mildura (VIC).
That regional organic waste is both an environmental problem and a rising cost. Large volumes of it currently go to landfill each year, where it breaks down and releases methane, while disposal costs for local operators climb. Processing it through anaerobic digestion captures that methane and turns a regional liability into local energy and products.
## What the facility is designed to do
The project is designed to accept regional organic waste and process up to 50,000 tonnes per year in Phase 1, scaling to up to 110,000 tonnes per year in Phase 2 approximately two years later. From that single process, the facility is built to produce several distinct outputs — and, with them, several different types of revenue stream:
• Renewable biomethane — a drop-in replacement for fossil natural gas, supplied to local and regional users.
• Food-grade biogenic CO₂ — captured and purified from the same process, for the region's food and beverage industries.
• Certified organic **fertiliser** — the nutrient-rich digestate returned to local agriculture.
• Environmental certificate and carbon streams — the renewable and emissions-reduction value of the project, recognised through schemes such as renewable gas certificates and, as the methodology develops, Australian Carbon Credit Units.
Together these mean the project isn't reliant on a single product or market — it converts one waste stream into several complementary forms of value, all generated locally.
## Where the project stands today
The Wentworth project is advancing, but it is important to be clear about its stage. It has not yet completed planning and permitting — that process is underway. What it does have is strong local backing: the project has received significant support from Wentworth Shire, and from the local community and businesses who see both the waste-management and economic benefits of having a facility like this in the region.
AWE is currently focused on wrapping up feedstock and offtake agreements — securing the supply of organic waste coming in and the buyers for the renewable products going out — before confirming further investment in the project. This is deliberate sequencing: locking in the supply and demand sides first de-risks the project and gives both AWE and any future partners confidence in its foundations before major capital is committed.
## Part of a wider pipeline
Wentworth is AWE's most advanced project, but not its only one. In Australia, AWE is also developing a second project at Cobram, in central-east Victoria — another strong agricultural and food-processing region. Internationally, AWE has a project in the Philippines, part of its work across Southeast Asia. Each follows the same core model: take regional organic waste and turn it into renewable energy and products, locally.
## For investors and partners
AWE is open to interest from aligned investors and partners — infrastructure investors, green-finance providers and others whose mandates fit projects of this kind. As the Wentworth project firms up its feedstock and offtake foundations, AWE welcomes early conversations with partners interested in Australia's emerging anaerobic digestion sector.
To discuss the Wentworth project or AWE's wider Australian and Southeast Asian pipeline, get in touch.