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il- and coal-based energy will remain the main energy resources in West Java according to the provincial administration’s energy plan 2050, which has been passed into a bylaw. The bylaw stipulates that the province’s energy consumption will include 26 percent oil and 29 percent coal.

The West Java Energy and Mineral Resources Agency forecast that by 2050, energy supplies will stand at 138 million tonnes of oil equivalent (mtoe), of which 28 percent will be renewable energy while the remaining 17 percent natural gas.

The agency’s energy and mineral division head Tubagus Nugraha cited the limited number of clean-energy power plants as one of the main reasons for the rather slow shift to higher use of renewable energy.

“We have to continue increasing the use of clean energy because the existing oil wells will only last for 12 years,” Tubagus told a discussion forum held in Bandung, West Java, recently.

He went on to say that, without development of new petroleum wells or other sources of alternative energy, the country’s current nonrenewable energy sources will continue to decline and eventually run out. It is predicted that coal reserves will last 82 years while natural gas 35 years.

Indonesia’s crude oil lifting continues to decline from the initial target, with the latest data from the country’s upstream oil and gas regulator SKKMIgas revealing that Indonesia produced 771,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2018, below the full-year target of 800,000 bpd.

Meanwhile, gas lifting fell 0.08 percent to 1.13 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) within the first three months of this year.

Throughout 2017, Indonesia’s oil lifting decreased by 2 percent to 803,847 bpd, while gas lifting plummeted by 5 percent to 1.14 million boepd.

Tubagus further said that based on 2015 data, energy use in West Java stood at 26 MTOE, including 35 percent of fossil fuel, 27 percent coal, 28 percent natural gas, and 10 percent renewable energy.

According to West Java’s 2017 energy plan, renewable energy potential in the province includes water (2,861 megawatts), micro hydro (647 mw), geothermal (5,924 mw) and bio-mass (2,544 mw).

“The [national] potential may reach 441.7 gigawatts but we only produced 9.07 gigawatts, or about 2 percent,” Tubagus said.

West Java is predicted to be able to produce 210-280 terawatt hours annually by installing 2,000 square kilometers of solar panels.

“It is enough to cover our energy consumption,” he said, believing that in about seven years the production cost of a solar power plant would be much lower than it is now.

Moreover, Energy and Mineral Resource Ministerial Regulation No 49/2018 allows the possibility for customers of state-owned electricity company PLN to install solar panels with the capacity of producing energy equivalent to the current installation at home.

A staff member at the Bandung Institute of Technology’s Center for New and Renewable Energy Studies, Isnain Aliman, likewise said the energy source with the most potential in Indonesia was oil palm bio-mass, which could provide as much as 32.6 gw, but only some 0.4 percent has been exploited.

“The only problem is that oil palm [plantations] reduce forests,” Isnain said.

Meanwhile, Meiki Pawendong of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) advocacy and campaign division called on the government and local administrations to not only focus on material benefit when designing energy policy.