Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The National Energy Council (DEN) highlighted Indonesia’s plan to retire domestic coal-fired steam power plants (PLTU) early. This should not cause Indonesia to experience an energy crisis.
DEN member, Herman Darnel Ibrahim, said that the government must take into account the details if it wants to retire coal-fired power plants early and ensure replacement energy sources, especially new renewable energy (EBT), whose reliability can be guaranteed.
“Phase out coal (early retirement of coal) can it really be replaced with EBT? Don’t let it happen that if you have phased out then there’s an (energy) crisis,” explained Herman at the Energy Transition Conference press conference in South Jakarta, Wednesday ( 10/18/2023).
Meanwhile, Herman also revealed that in achieving Indonesia’s target of achieving neutral carbon emissions (NZE) by 2060, including by replacing dirty energy sources, in this case coal with EBT, we must first pay attention to energy security in the country.
“Actually, we are phasing out coal and we need to calculate that the most important thing for us is energy security,” he added.
Apart from that, Herman said that for the PLTU early retirement plan, even the domestic electricity company, namely PT PLN (Persero), does not yet know the most reliable energy source to replace coal PLTUs, especially on the island of Java.
“This is something that needs to be understood well and is currently still at the negotiation stage. But when they have a dialogue with PLN, they don’t know what to replace it with if there is a coal phase out in Java,” he stressed.
As is known, Indonesia is committed to reducing carbon emissions to achieve Net Zero Emissions (NZE) by 2060 or sooner. One of the strategies currently being promoted is early retirement of energy sources with high carbon emissions, such as coal-based Steam Power Plants (PLTU).
This is in line with Indonesia which must reduce 290 million tonnes of carbon emissions in the electricity sector and implement a 34% renewable energy mix by 2030.
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) notes that the majority of the primary energy mix for electricity generation in Indonesia still comes from coal. The percentage was recorded at 67.21% in 2022.
The primary energy mix for electricity generation from coal was observed to have increased last year. This is in line with the installed capacity of steam power plants which has increased to 42.1 Giga Watt (GW).
The second largest primary energy mix for electricity generation comes from gas. The proportion was recorded at 15.96% last year. Then, the new EBT mix will reach 14.11% in 2022. The percentage has increased compared to 2021 which was 13.65%.
In this way, the role of coal as an energy raw material in Indonesia is difficult to replace. This of course makes coal irreplaceable with new renewable energy (EBT).
Executive Director of the Reforminer Institute, Komaidi Notonegoro, revealed that there are various challenges for Indonesia who wants to make an energy transition using EBT. Although indeed, the potential for EBT in Indonesia is quite large.
“It’s true that we have quite a large source of new, renewable energy, but there are also several problems there. One of them is the problem of intermittency, meaning the supply is unstable, in this fossil case, which I think the government also needs to prepare because it definitely needs backup,” explained Komaidi to CNBC Indonesia in the Energy Corner program, Tuesday (3/10/2023).
He said, there are also renewable energy sources that are not hampered by intermittency, such as those that can be used for geothermal energy. Unfortunately, said Komaidi, geothermal energy sources also have limitations because they are located far from the center of community activities.
“Meanwhile, geothermal energy so far has been located in remote areas, in the mountains where the infrastructure is still not ready, relatively unready compared to other new renewable energy sources so the costs are of course higher,” he added.
With the various challenges that exist, Komaidi said that this is homework for all parties to encourage cheaper financing in the future.
“Well, this is our homework together, especially policy makers, how we can encourage the cost structure to be cheaper in the future,” he said.
[Gambas:Video CNBC]
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Originally posted 2023-10-18 12:45:16.