RI’s huge renewable energy potential ‘remains untapped’

Indonesia has huge potential in renewable energy sources, but so far has only utilized a very small part of them, with high production costs and uncertainty over feasibility among the main problems.

Coordinator of the renewable energy research group at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Verina J. Wargadalam, said Tuesday that Indonesia’s estimated potential of renewable energy capacity from hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass energy alone reached more than 150 gigawatts (GW) annually.

This excludes other highly potential energy resources, such as solar, wind and ocean wave energy.

“Total utilization of renewable energy in Indonesia in 2007 was less than 5.7 GW,” she said in her paper abstract at the opening of the 2009 International Workshop on Advanced Material for New and Renewable Energy (AMNRE), taking place from Tuesday to Thursday.

In her presentation, Verina broke down the potential capacities of each of the renewable energy sources.

There are more than 1,300 potential locations for exploitation of hydroelectric generation spread across the country, she said, with an annual capacity of 75 GW.

More than 252 areas identified as potential geothermal fields have estimated small to intermediate enthalpy of about 30 gigawatts electrical (GWe) and high enthalpy about 27 GWe.

Agricultural and forestry waste, meanwhile, has a potential capacity of 50 GW annually.


Erwida Maulia , The Jakarta Post , Jakarta | Tue, 06/09/2009 9:30 PM | Business