T

he government has lowered its expectation of how much electricity can be generated using renewable energy in the medium term, despite rambunctious efforts to take advantage of Indonesia’s plentiful resources.

The percentage of electricity targeted to be generated by renewable energy by 2025 has decreased to 19.6 percent from the initial goal of 25 percent, according to a final copy of the 2016-2025 electricity procurement business plan (RUPTL), submitted by state-owned electricity company PLN and finalized by the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.

The RUPTL states that the original target of 25 percent, as stated in the 2015-2034 general plan for national electricity (RUKN), was unachievable unless an additional 3.6 gigawatts (GW) was procured from nuclear power plants or 14.4 GW from other renewable energy sources in order to produce approximately 27 terawatt-hours (TWh).

“Another option is to take advantage of 5.1 GW gas-fueled power plants as a contingency plan in the case that the 25 percent new and renewable energy target is not achieved by 2025,” the RUPTL reads.

Electricity procurement targets from other sources have also changed. By 2025, the government hopes that 50.3 percent of electricity generation will be fueled by coal, 29.4 percent by gas, 0.7 percent by petroleum-based fuel and the remaining 19.6 percent by new and renewable energy sources.

Notably, the target for electricity generation from gas has increased from 24.3 percent to make up for the new and renewable energy sources.

Indonesia’s unique position as a tropical and archipelagic country has left it with abundant renewable energy sources, from hydropower to solar energy. The increased use of new and renewable energy will benefit the country in the long term as the costs incurred from the environmental damage caused by the exploitation of fossil-based fuels is far-reaching.

The country is estimated to have around 28 GW in geothermal potential and 75 GW in hydropower potential that can general electricity. The estimated total potential of renewable energy in the country is estimated to reach more than 300,000 megawatts (MW).

In 2015, 55.7 percent of electricity generation was fueled by coal, 25.3 percent by gas, 8.2 percent by diesel fuel, 5.9 percent by hydropower plants and approximately 4 percent from geothermal energy, according to PLN data.

Indonesia has long been trying to increase the electrification ratio in order to further support economic growth. Currently, the country’s electrification rate stands at 88.3 percent and is expected to increase to 99.7 percent by 2025.

Among the government’s efforts to boost electrification is the ambitious 35,000 MW plan, which is expected to increase the ratio to a whopping 97.35 percent.

PLN president director Sofyan Basir said the company was currently focusing on speeding up the construction of gas-fueled power plants outside of Java as steam-fueled power plants took much longer to build.

“We are concerned that we will not be able to complete the steam-fueled power plants outside of Java by 2017 to 2018. So we are focused on the EPC [engineering, procurement and construction] of the gas-types,” he said recently.

Sofyan estimated that around 2,000 MW of gas power plants would be constructed outside of Java, many of which could be constructed in the form of mobile power plants as they only took five to six months to complete.