A national conference is being held in Ballarat to coincide with the opening of applications for a $2m State Government program to develop Victoria’s waste to energy sector.

Sustainability Victoria chief executive Stan Krpan said the Waste to Energy Infrastructure Fund targeted Victoria’s need to boost sustainable energy production.

“Wind-farms and large scale solar installations are now part of the renewable energy solution and recycling, but using waste as a fuel for electricity generation also offers considerable opportunities. Just in Victoria in 2014/15 more than 300,000 tonnes of food waste came from food processing, manufacturing, hotels, restaurants and shopping centre food courts yet only 22% was recycled, mostly by composting or using it as animal food.”

Animal waste from industry and farms, tyres, plastic and other materials can also be used to generate energy.

Stan told the conference that using waste materials to create energy has a role in Victoria’s renewable energy future because the state has major agricultural and food processing industries.

“We need to look carefully at options and identify secure sources of feedstock for generators which can produce base-load electricity. The question is not ‘if’ this will happen, but ‘when and how’,” Stan said.

A report from the Clean Energy Finance Corporation in 2015 found that obtaining energy from bio-energy and other urban waste could generate 800MW in Australia each year and could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by nine million tonnes.

“As part of our future-energy equation waste to energy plants can be coupled with wind-farms and solar arrays like the three announced this week for north-west Victoria and with the capacity to power Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong. Adding industrial-scale batteries to store energy produced at times of low demand for release when it’s needed can reinforce the system,” said Stan.

A number of technologies can be used to power generators using waste, including anaerobic digestion plants using microorganisms to digest waste and create methane, pyrolysis using extreme heat to turn tyres into oils and gages, and the gasification process that turns organic or oil-based materials, such as plastic, into gas.

The Waste to Energy Infrastructure Fund is intended for the waste management sector, councils, water authorities and others able to commission new or upgraded projects by 31 December 2019. Eligible project ideas will be subject to a full application and a detailed business case assessment process.