This commitment is surprising news and was greeted with great fanfare by various parties. As an entity that has been known to rely heavily on coal energy, PLN is considered to have chosen bold and progressive electricity policies.

Apart from being expected to have a notable impact on efforts to overcome the global climate crisis, this commitment is also expected to accelerate the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix to 23 percent by 2025.

Unfortunately, PLN’s net zero target still appears to be a half-hearted commitment because within the policy’s framework, PLN has inserted problematic provisions that favor coal energy development.

It turns out that PLN's plan to no longer build coal-fired power plants will only be carried out after completing the 35,000 Megawatt project and the 7,000 MW Fast Track Program (FTP) number two by 2023.

At this time there are around 6,000 MW of coal-fired power plant projects that are still in the planning and contract stage. If PLN insists on completing this project simultaneously with coal-fired power plants that have reached the funding and construction stage, then in 2023 there will be an additional total capacity of 16,000 to 17,000 MW.

From an environmental perspective, new coal-fired power plant construction is alarmingly dangerous. The existence of new coal-fired power plants with such a large total capacity (16,000 to 17,000 MW) will result in a significant increase in carbon emissions, with around 107 million tons of CO2 produced per year. As a consequence, the climate crisis problem will likely get worse and become increasingly difficult to tackle.

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