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Clean energy poses challenge to coal-reliant Indonesia
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The Tanjung Power Indonesia coal-fired power plant in Tanjung, Tabalong, South Kalimantan, as seen from above on March 13. (Antara/Hafidz Mubarak A.)
T
he government, which is highly dependent on coal for power generation, will be facing challenges from consumers as more and more people are shifting to clean energy, an energy expert says.
Fabby Tumiwa, the executive director of local energy think tank the Institute for Essential Service Reform (IESR), made the statement after the institute published a report titled “Indonesia’s Coal Dynamics: Toward a Just Energy Transition” recently.
In its report, the IESR concludes that two types of renewable energy will be cheaper than coal-generated electricity by 2030 and wind power will be on par with coal by 2050.
"For example, the price of solar photovoltaic [PV] electricity in 2030 will stand at 4.69 US cents per kilowatt hours [kWh], while the price of coal will stand at 5.15 to 5.25 US cents per kWh,” he said.
“In other words, PLN [the state electricity firm] will lose customers soon even though the demand is growing."
PLN’s latest 10-year electricity plan, which is called the electricity procurement plan (RUPTL), for the 2019 to 2028 period states that projected electricity consumption growth this year will stand at 6.4 percent, which is 0.46 percent lower than its previous plan.
Even though the procurement plan has been revised, it is still being seen as “too ambitious”, because a calculation from a global energy think tank, the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), recorded that the average demand growth in the last five years (2013 to 2018) stood at only 4.6 percent.
