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Geothermal energy catalyst for Indonesian, New Zealand relationship: Diplomat

Investment in Indonesia’s geothermal energy sector would strengthen the longstanding collaboration between Indonesia and New Zealand, a senior New Zealand diplomat has said

Michael Andrew (The Jakarta Post)
Jakarta
Fri, January 24, 2020

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Geothermal energy catalyst for Indonesian, New Zealand relationship: Diplomat

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span>Investment in Indonesia’s geothermal energy sector would strengthen the longstanding collaboration between Indonesia and New Zealand, a senior New Zealand diplomat has said.

The two countries have enjoyed a strong partnership in geothermal energy since the 1970s and much of New Zealand’s foreign aid to Indonesia goes toward the geothermal industry, New Zealand Ambassador to Indonesia Jonathan Austin told The Jakarta Post.

However, he said Indonesian coal subsidies made it hard for geothermal energy to compete and for investors to commit to projects, some of which take up to a decade to develop.

“If you’re going to subsidize any form of energy you should be subsidizing renewables and not fossil fuels. That will be critical for unlocking renewable energy here,” Austin said.

“Every megawatt of coal power production that we offset is less carbon going into the atmosphere that we all share and New Zealand believes quite strongly that we can’t continue to burn fossil fuels if we want to continue to live on our planet.

“So sharing our knowledge of renewable energy, particularly in geothermal, is something that we are very happy to do.”

New Zealand helped finance and build Indonesia’s first geothermal energy plant in Kamojang, West Java, in the 1980s and both countries are now at the forefront of global geothermal production. They are two members of the “Gigawatt club”, a group of five countries that produce more than 1,000 megawatts of geothermal energy a year.

While the United States, Turkey and the Philippines are the other big producers, Indonesia is estimated to have some of the world’s greatest geothermal energy reserves.

Austin said although Indonesia had enormous potential for geothermal energy, the reserves could be very difficult to locate and measure.

“One of the strengths of New Zealand is we mapped out the geothermal fields quite early, so we know pretty accurately where it is and how deep it is so we have a lot of technical knowledge.”

“We’ve been helping Indonesia better map what they’ve got so they have something that they can turn into a commercial operation.”

A key benefit of the relationship between the two countries has been the sharing of expertise and education; Indonesian geothermal engineering students often study in New Zealand, which has some of the world’s best facilities and systems.

Around 1,200 Indonesian students studied in New Zealand in 2018 and under the New Zealand Aid Program up to 60 fully funded scholarships for postgraduate study are provided each year for Indonesian students.

According to the University of Auckland, most of the current students enrolled in its geothermal engineering course are from Indonesia.

“It you put 100 Indonesian geothermal experts in a room, I’d expect at least 25 of them to have spent time in New Zealand, probably even more,” Austin said.

After training in New Zealand, many engineers return to Indonesia to apply their skills to existing and developing projects here.

A geoscientist living and working in Jakarta, Novi Ganifianto, said he studied in New Zealand in the early 1990s, and had since moved back and forth between the two countries.

“I studied the geothermal course in Auckland in 1993 and then came back here for 20 years. In 2010, I got an offer from a New Zealand company to work there as a geoscientist, and I worked there for four years,” he said.

He joked that his son was “almost a New Zealander” as his wife was heavily pregnant and due to give birth just as they left New Zealand in the 1990s.

Two of his adult sons have also studied in New Zealand.

He said that geothermal energy was “the vector” for the relationship between Indonesia and New Zealand, which is built on each country’s comparative advantage.

“Indonesia is blessed with resources, and New Zealand is blessed with a very good system.”

Two New Zealanders working in the same office as Novi are also involved in the geothermal industry.

Irene Wallis, who has lived in Indonesia for two-and-a-half years working on geothermal projects, said that New Zealanders and Indonesians had similar styles of dialogue and humor, which helped them build relationships, especially in business.

“To make people comfortable here, the social element is very critical,” she told the Post.

“When you’re here to collaborate with a technical team it becomes very obvious that you have to put effort into the weird slapstick humor.”

She said although geothermal energy was a hard sell in a market where the government was the sole buyer, she looked forward to Indonesia realizing its geothermal potential as a world leader.

“One of the things I’m most excited about is Indonesians leading the geothermal industry,” Wallis said.

— The writer is an intern under the ACICIS program.

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