The President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo visited the PT PLN (Persero) booth as part of the 2023 World Hydropower Congress (WHC) in Nusa Dua Bali on Tuesday (31/10).
On this occasion, the Main Director of PLN, Darmawan Prasodjo, explained the company’s strategy in developing Hydroelectric Power Plants (PLTA/Hydropower) in the country.
“As an archipelagic country, Indonesia has a variety of new and renewable energy sources. “Specifically for water energy, as one of the largest energy sources, water has a potential that can be utilized up to 95 GW, but only 5.8 GW has been utilized,” explained Darmawan.
According to him, this is due to challenges in the form of incompatibility between new, large-scale renewable energy sources, such as water, which are in remote areas and far from the epicenter of electricity demand in other regions.
Darmawan said that PLN, under the direction of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM), is preparing an Accelerated Renewable Energy Development (ARED) strategy which is capable of increasing new renewable energy generation capacity by up to 75% by 2040.
“With ARED, the use of water as a source of electrical energy in Indonesia can increase water use to 25.3 GW in 2040 or an increase of 185% compared to Business as Usual (BaU),” said Darmawan.
In line with this, President Joko Widodo in his speech said that global warming is a real threat to the whole world.
In this case, the Indonesian Government is fully committed to accelerating the energy transition, through the addition of New and Renewable Energy (EBT) on a large scale.
According to him, the total potential for NRE in the country is estimated to reach 3,600 Gigawatt (GW), both from sun, wind, geothermal, waves, bio energy and hydropower. Specifically for hydro, Indonesia has more than 4,400 potential rivers, of which 128 are large rivers.
“Like the Mamberamo river which has a potential of 24 thousand Megawatts (MW) in Papua. Then the Kayan River in North Kalimantan has a potential of 13 thousand MW which will later be used as a source of electricity for the Green Industrial Park in Kalimantan. “This is a huge potential that we can exploit for the future of the earth and the future of future generations,” he explained.
However, the President emphasized that Indonesia also faces various challenges in developing its huge hydro potential, one of which is related to the location of hydro sources which are far from the center of electricity demand.
0So, the Indonesian government created a blueprint for accelerating transmission lines that connect electricity from hydropower locations to the centers of economic growth and industrial growth centers.
Apart from that, challenges also arise in terms of investment and technology transfer. “This requires significant investment and requires collaboration with all hydro ecosystem forces in the world,” added the President. (Eka)
Source: Indonesia News
