Indonesia plans to spend heavily on renewable energy

[ASEAN NOW Content Team]

 

To attain its objective of carbon neutrality by 2060, the Indonesian government predicts that a total expenditure of up to $1,043 billion will be required to create new power plants powered by renewable energy.

The Southeast Asian country's power generation is currently mainly reliant on coal.

 

To reach its target of carbon neutrality by 2060, the Indonesian government predicts that a total expenditure of up to $1,043 billion will be required.
Power generation in the Southeast Asian country is currently dominated by coal.

 

According to Dadan Kusdiana, Director General of New Renewable Energy (NRE) at the Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Ministry, this number is based on government estimations.
Dadan stated the majority of the investment would be spent on creating new renewable energy facilities during his explanation at the Indonesia Business Challenges 2022 event last Thursday, according to Bisnis Indonesia.
Plants with a combined capacity of 707.7 GW are expected to be built with the $1,043 billion investment.

According to Reuters, the World Bank advised Indonesia to abandon a policy requiring miners to produce a specific amount of subsidised coal to the country's national power utility, PLN, which it claimed encouraged the use of dirty coal in power generation.

 

The suggestion is part of a report released last Thursday with the goal of encouraging more private investment in renewable energy in Indonesia in order to help the country meet its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2060 or sooner.

Indonesia is the world's largest supplier of thermal coal and one of the top 10 emitters of greenhouse gases.

According to Reuters, renewables account for about 12% of Indonesia's energy sources, while coal accounts for roughly 60%.

According to the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, renewable energy utilisation in Indonesia has only achieved 0.3 percent of the country's overall potential.

 

Indonesia has a clean energy potential of 3685 GW, which includes 3,295 GW of solar energy, 95 GW of hydropower, 57 GW of bioenergy, 155 GW of wind power, 24 GW of geothermal energy, and 60 GW of marine energy, according to Sahid Junaidi, secretary of the Directorate General of New, Renewable Energy, and Energy Conservation.

Only 10,889 MW of clean energy has been used out of the whole potential, he added, including 194 MW of solar energy, 6,432 MW of hydro energy, 1,923 MW of bioenergy, 154 MW of wind power, and 2,186 MW of geothermal energy.

"In addition to renewable energy, a number of novel energy potentials, such as nuclear and hydrogen power, are still little recognised," he noted.