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n less than three weeks, The Queen of Denmark will arrive in Indonesia to embark on her first ever state visit. She will be accompanied by the foreign minister and the minister for energy, utilities and climate as well as a large business delegation.

There is no reason to hide the fact that Indonesia and Denmark are in many ways each other'€™s opposite, but at the end of the day we have more in common than meets the eye. Generating opportunities for people through sustainable growth are goals shared across the 11,000 kilometer divide.

This year the two nations celebrate 65 years of unbroken diplomatic relations and the aim of the state visit is to boost those ties even further. In short, we want to create an innovative partnership for the 21st century.

Among other topics to be discussed, energy cooperation will attract particular attention. Indonesia has set ambitious targets for the energy sector. Its vision is another 35,000 megawatts by 2019 '€” or roughly 70-80 percent more than today. Further, the electrification rate must increase and reach a minimum of 97 percent of the population by 2019. Renewable energy must account for 23 percent by 2025 and energy intensity is to decrease by 1 percent per year.

Without a doubt, these ambitions require investment, new approaches, technology, but not least partnerships with like-minded countries that can and will provide expertise and knowledge based on their own experiences and adequate technology that can provide some, if not all, of the solutions.

In the past four decades, Denmark has undergone transition from being a 100 percent fossil fuel importing country to self-sufficient in energy supply. At the same time renewable energy accounts for around a quarter of our gross energy consumption. In fact wind power can generate between 50 to 99 percent of Denmark'€™s power consumption on windy days.

On that basis it is time to debunk one myth: there is no contradiction between growth and sustainability. Denmark has experienced an economic growth of 38 percent since 1990 without increasing its energy consumption while at the same time reducing emission of greenhouse gasses by 25 percent, thanks to energy efficiency and new technology and combined heat and power plants.

Indonesia and Denmark have been working together for a long time to find state-of-the-art solutions to energy and environmental challenges. Our US$50 million development program already supports the government with its climate change and green growth agenda '€” for example by setting up pilot projects that generate experience and know-how, which can be utilized across Indonesia.

Recently we expanded our diplomatic toolbox through the deployment of a senior government-to-government energy advisor. With a background from the Danish Energy Agency our advisor will compliment development activities by providing peer-to-peer technical expertise to counterparts in the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources through a strategic sector cooperation.

In order to assist and support Indonesia'€™s energy vision, Denmark is putting more efforts and resources into developing closer cooperation with the main stakeholders/players in the energy sector.

We envisage our energy cooperation as an à la carte menu. We want to share our planning, regulation and framework conditions on a pick and choose basis. The key word here is sharing '€” not selling, and there are no strings attached other than a genuine desire to help Indonesia.

We have gained experience and developed methodologies that may be adoptable in Indonesia given the specific challenges and opportunities. And that is exactly why the collaboration and partnership is so important. We have not come to the point where we are today without making mistakes '€” unfortunately. There have been bumps on the road '€” wrong investment in some sectors, badly designed subsidy schemes in others.

The energy partnership we want to create with Indonesia will see the transfer of technology and experiences from regulatory and legislative frameworks. By sharing and learning from each other we avoid repeating non-sustainable solutions. When we decide to invest in power plants today we will have to live with that decision for the next 30-40 years and in reality it is not our children but our grandchildren that will have to pay for our mistakes.

During the upcoming state visit we expect to witness the signing of a massive new investment into a new wind farm in Indonesia that will provide no less than 62.5 MW of power. By sharing knowledge about grid-integration and feed-in-tariffs, that wind farm should pave the way for further investment into renewable energy to the benefit of Indonesia'€™s economy '€” and the environment.