Energy/Power Advisory

The failing cost of wind and solar power technologies – with the declining cost of the storage system, have made renewable energy become more cost-competitive in generating electricity to conventional power plants. Their advancement presents serious threats to the existing power system as well as to the conventional business model of the power industry. As these clean energy technologies become affordable to the customer and easy to deploy as distributed generation, it could disrupt centralize and monopolistic structure of the country existing power supply system – moreover will causing stranded assets. This could lead to potential financial catastrophe and a threat to energy security.

To anticipate and address the challenges, government agencies and utility have to take some actions properly and systematically. IESR believes that it can be anticipated and addressed through reforming policy and regulation, improving medium and long-term planning towards low carbon power system, reforming power sector industry, and adjust utility business model, as well as promote more robust private sector investment. Nevertheless, those transformational changes require a political consensus of various stakeholders in the sector.

Country’s policy and decision-makers need to be supported with better knowledge and understanding of the current trends and its consequences. For this reason, IESR designed the Energy/Power Advisory work package as a support system to conduct robust fact-based research, modeling, and analysis of the energy and power system and policies. Thus, an informed decision based on accurate information, science and facts can be offered to the government agencies and utility.

During the first-year project (2018), we conducted five studies, five main workshops, and training. In total, there were five reports and four briefing papers produced and promoted to the targeted stakeholders by the end of the year. The five reports are:

• Igniting A Rapid Deployment of Renewable Energy in Indonesia: Lessons Learned from Three Countries

The study aims to address the main question of the study: What kind of coherent policy framework that Indonesia needs to have a rapid deployment of renewable energy? Thus, we conducted a comparative study from Germany, China, and India as they have success stories to develop renewable energy, and extracted some lessons learned for Indonesia. The full report of the study can be accessed here, while the briefing paper can be accessed here.

• Energy Transition in A Nutshell: 8 Q & A on the German Energy Transition and Its Relevance for Indonesia

Energy transitions are happening around the globe and bring some challenges and opportunities at the same time. In the Indonesian context, the transition still being in its very stage, a lot of misperceptions persist on its associated cost, on its impact on power system reliability, and on the broader economy. This paper aims to bring knowledge and experience from Germany, a frontrunner country of the energy transition, and assess what this would mean for Indonesia. The full report of the study can be accessed here.

• Roadmap for Indonesia’s Power Sector: How Renewable can Power Java-Bali and Sumatra

Currently, supplying the increasing electricity demand for Indonesians is mainly powered by fossil energy, in particular, coal-fired generation. While at the same time, renewable energy shall make up 23% of the country’s primary energy mix, up from 8% today. Against this background, IESR in cooperation with Monash Energy Materials and System Institute (MEMSI), the Australia-Indonesia Centre, and Agora Energiewende conducted a model-based power system analysis on Java-Bali and Sumatra systems based on PLN’s RUPTL. The full report of the study can be accessed here, while the summary for policymakers can be accessed here.

• Coal Dynamics and Energy Transition in Indonesia

Coal has long become an important part of the Indonesian economy. The country’s energy policy also put coal as the key fuel for electricity to meet the energy demand. Clouded with believing that coal is the cheapest source for generating electricity, coal is aimed to supply at least 30% of the primary energy mix by 2025. To understand the dynamics of the coal sector in future Indonesia as the global economy is shifting toward a low carbon economy and as renewable energy becomes more competitive, IESR with Global Environmental Institute (GEI) undertaken the study. The full report of the study can be accessed here.

• Indonesia Clean Energy Outlook

Indonesia Clean Energy Outlook is one of IESR flagship studies. The report produced annually, reviewing the clean energy status and progress in the current year and out-looking the next year. In details, the study covers the highlights on the clean energy development, the policy and regulatory framework review, one special trending topic of the year, and forecasting the following year. A full report of the 2018 Indonesia Clean Energy Outlook can be accessed here.