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View all search results100 GW: new electrons for a new economy
The 100-gigawatt solar ambition is no longer about hitting a target, it is about turning homegrown clean power into our next great economic engine.
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A farmer walks into the solar-powered water pump station in Tengengwetan village, Siwalan district in Pekalongan, Central Java, on Aug. 22. The solar-powered water pump allows farmers to cut diesel fuel consumption and thus their production cost. (Courtesy of Central Java provincial administration/-)
E
ver since the government announced its 100-gigawatt (GW) solar ambition, national debate has hinged on a single dimension: Can we really build 100 GW of solar power, and by when?
That debate has run its course. The question that matters now is not whether or when Indonesia can build 100 GW, but how that power can propel the next phase of our economic growth.
The 100 GW ambition represents low-cost, homegrown power and a catalyst for green growth, a transition made all the more urgent by recent shocks to global fuel supplies. Yet the true prize lies in what these new electrons can build: reliable power for remote villages, emerging industrial clusters, electric vehicle fleets and hyperscale data centers.
Supply and demand must grow in tandem so that every generated megawatt feeds directly into national productivity.
Let us be frank. Delivering at this scale will be difficult. Solar deployment in Indonesia has historically faced steep land-acquisition hurdles, while retail tariffs remain suppressed by capped domestic coal prices. But global economic tailwinds are firmly in solar’s favor.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (2025), module costs have plummeted roughly 97 percent since 2010, while the installed cost of utility-scale storage has dropped by 93 percent, outpacing nearly every historical forecast.
The Energy Transitions Commission (2025) confirmed that solar is now the cheapest source of new generation across sunny regions worldwide. As Lord Adair Turner observed, every dollar invested today buys twice as much clean power as it did just three years ago.
