Jakarta, November 17, 2025 – Indonesia plans to start the construction of the Tolo 2 Wind Power Plant (PLTB) in South Sulawesi, with construction scheduled to begin late next year. This power plant is a development of the Tolo 1 Wind Farm, which has been fully operational since its inauguration in 2019.
Responding to this development, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), Fabby Tumiwa, emphasized that the main issue in renewable energy development is not only the power plant itself but also the readiness of the transmission network. He explained that the expansion of the transmission network is currently progressing slower than the required growth rate for renewable energy.
“The construction of wind power projects like PLTB can take around three to four years. However, the construction of the transmission network needed to deliver electricity from the plant to consumers can take even longer. If the network is not ready when the power plant is completed, the generated electricity cannot be utilized optimally right away,” Fabby stressed in an interview with Channel News Asia aired on Wednesday (November 12).
Therefore, Fabby underscored the importance of synchronizing the development of power plants and the transmission network. The government and related parties need to ensure that the transmission network expansion is planned and executed from the outset, so that when wind projects like PLTB Tolo 2 are ready to operate and connect to the system, the electricity grid is already available and capable of accommodating the new power supply. This will ensure that the benefits of the PLTB development for Indonesia’s renewable energy mix can be maximized.
Previously, the Tolo 1 Wind Farm had a capacity of 71 megawatts (MW), consisting of 20 wind turbines, each 133 meters high with 63-meter blades. It utilizes a wind speed of 6-8 m/s to generate environmentally friendly electricity. The Tolo Wind Farm is the second largest wind power plant in Indonesia after the Sidrap Wind Farm.