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We are Australia’s largest producer of renewable energy from biomass
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Sustainability
Sustainability
Producing renewable electricity is just one step in our commitment to maintain a responsible and sustainable sugar supply chain.
Mills
Mills
Renewable energy powers our eight sugar mills in the Herbert, Burdekin, Proserpine and Plane Creek regions of Queensland.
Bagasse
Bagasse
Bagasse is the fibrous material left over after sugarcane has been crushed to remove its sweet juice. We use it to produce renewable energy.
Nature's battery
Nature’s battery
Bagasse is nature’s battery for stored energy. Each year we convert the energy in more than five million tonnes of bagasse into renewable energy.
Powering our mills
Powering our mills
We burn bagasse in large boilers to generate steam and power for factory processes.
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Power to the grid
Power to the grid
Each year, we export enough renewable electricity to power 68,000 homes for 12 months.
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Renewable energy

We are Australia’s largest producer of renewable energy from biomass.

The biomass we use to create power is called bagasse. It is the fibre that’s left over after the sugarcane has been crushed to remove its sweet juice.

Bagasse is recycled and used as boiler fuel at our mills. It’s burned at temperatures of more than 800˚C to produce steam. The energy in this steam is either converted into electricity or used as heat in the factories. This process of using both heat and power from a single energy source is called cogeneration.

Our eight sugar mills have a total generation capacity of 202 megawatts, producing about 620,000 megawatt hours of electricity each year. We create enough renewable electricity to power our mills and export significant quantities to the Queensland power grid. Each year we export enough electricity to power more than 68,000 Australian homes for 12 months.

While all of our mills produce renewable energy, Pioneer, Invicta and Victoria mills have greater generation capacity. Pioneer’s cogeneration plant is the largest generator in Australia run on biomass alone. Surplus bagasse produced in our Burdekin mills during the crushing season is stockpiled on large, specially designed pads at Pioneer Mill so we can continue to produce power outside of the crushing season.

Renewable energy