The Cirata Floating Solar Power Plant (PLTS) is said to be able to reduce carbon emissions by 214,000 tons per year. The Cirata Floating PLTS which is located in the Cirata Reservoir, Purwakarta, West Java, was inaugurated by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) on Thursday (9/11/2023).
In his remarks, Jokowi said that the Cirata Floating PLTS is the largest in Southeast Asia and third in the world with a total installed capacity of 192 megawatt peak (MWp).
The Cirata Floating PLTS is one of the National Strategic Projects (PSN) resulting from collaboration between Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which involves PLN Nusantara Power’s subholding with Masdar. Main Director of PLN Nusantara Power Rully Firmansyah said that the Cirata Floating PLTS can supply electricity to 50,000 houses assuming that each house consumes 15 kilowatt hours (kWh) per day.
Apart from that, the Cirata Floating PLTS can contribute to reducing carbon emissions by 586.3 tons per day, as reported by a PLN press release. “So in a year it will reduce carbon emissions by 214,000 tons per year. “This is our commitment to distribute green electricity to the community in a sustainable manner,” said Rully.
With an area of the Cirata Reservoir of more than 6,200 hectares, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Arifin Tasrif is optimistic that the installed capacity of floating PLTS can still be optimized to 1.2 gigawatt peak (GWp). “The capacity of the Cirata Floating PLTS can still be developed even greater, with a maximum total potential of around 1.2 GWp if it utilizes 20 percent of the total area of the Cirata Reservoir,” said Arifin, Thursday.
He added that the development of large-scale PLTS could also attract industry to make raw materials for solar panels.
Source: Kompas.com