News

Indonesias fight to keep up with growing energy demand

Indonesias fight to keep up with growing energy demand Jakarta, Indonesia (source: flckr/ fidzonflickr, creative commons)
Alexander Richter 25 Feb 2013

Indonesia will continue to have to fight to keep up with the increasing energy demand in the country, expecting a capacity demand of 237,000 MW by 2031 and hopes for geothermal providing more than 10 percent thereof.

On a recent trip to the Philippines an  interesting fact was brought to my attention. I was told that each percent in GDP growth automatically means an electricity capacity demand increase of 0.8% . If one looks at continued growth in Asia, including Indonesia, one can only imagine how close the energy demand numbers put out by the respective governments in those countries are close to reality.

The increasing energy demand in Indonesia sees a growth rate of ca. 10. 1 percent on average per year. The national electricity demand in Indonesia in 2012 was about 171 TWhs (171,000,000 MWhs), this is expected to increase to about 1,075 TWh by 2031. So extra power of 237,020 in power generation capacity is required by that time. To put this into perspective the total installed capacity in 2010 for Japan (no. 3 in the world) is 287,000 MW and Russia (no 4) is 229,000 MW. …. so Indonesia is likely to be among the top 5 countries in the world when it comes to capacity demand and installed.

This is a huge huge number…. and there is no way this number can be achieved without looking at renewables, and this is why geothermal is a crucial option in the overall energy supply scenario of the country. The government pursues an annual growth of 5,000 MW. Geothermal, as mentioned here before, is seen as being able to provide about 30,000 MW to the overall energy supply, hydro about 75,000 MW and solar and biomass combined about 35,000 MW.

In 2012 new geothermal power generation capacity of 115 MW came online in Indonesia.

The new feed-in-tariff for geothermal of $0.10 to $0.185 per kWh is to provide incentive for investors pushing development of geothermal projects in the country further.

Source: Waspada Online