San Miguel Biogas Project

Turning Wastewater into Clean Energy — How a Biogas Project in Thailand Delivers Climate Impact and Local Benefits

Industrial processes often produce large volumes of wastewater rich in organic matter. If left untreated in open ponds, the natural decomposition of this wastewater releases methane — a powerful greenhouse gas with around 25–30× the climate-warming impact of CO₂ over decades.

That’s where the San Miguel Biogas Project in Thailand comes in.

🌱 What the Project Does

Located at the Thai San Miguel Liquor (TSML) distillery — this project installed an anaerobic digester and closed lagoon system to capture methane from wastewater that would otherwise escape into the atmosphere.

Once captured, the biogas is used to produce heat and electricity on site and can even be exported to the grid. This turns what used to be a climate problem into a source of renewable energy.

📊 Impact in Numbers

Here’s what the project achieves on average each year:

• ~87,990 tonnes of CO₂e avoided by capturing methane that would have entered the atmosphere, equivalent to removing the annual emissions of nearly 18,000 average Europeans.
• Approximately 30,000 m³ of biogas captured annually, used for heat and electricity generation at the distillery and beyond.

To put that in perspective: every tonne of methane avoided yields a disproportionate climate benefit because methane traps far more heat than CO₂ over the short- and mid-term.

🌍 Beyond Emission Reductions

This project also delivers value beyond raw climate metrics:

• Renewable energy generation: Waste biogas displaces fossil fuel use — reducing local reliance on carbon-intensive power.
• Cleaner water and air locally: Closed systems reduce odours and water pollution compared with open lagoons.
• Economic opportunity: Carbon revenue supports local jobs and community activities around the distillery’s operations.

These benefits align with several UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) — including affordable and clean energy (SDG 7), decent work and economic growth (SDG 8), and climate action (SDG 13).

💡 Why This Matters for GoClimate Supporters

When you support high-quality climate projects like this one through GoClimate, your contributions:

• Drive real emissions reductions with certified methodologies (e.g., Gold Standard).
• Get results that go beyond carbon — boosting local environmental quality and economic resilience.
• Accelerate the transition to renewable energy at the industrial scale.

You’re not just reducing emissions — you’re channeling climate finance into solutions that would not happen at the same scale without voluntary support.