Bogor, August 17, 2024 – In 2024, Indonesia will be 79 years old. Throughout that age, Indonesia has experienced various situations and even crises. In providing energy, Indonesia still has homework to ensure the quality of electricity distributed. In addition to being connected, energy quality indicators are important because quality electricity allows people to use electricity for productive activities and communal social activities.
Solar energy is a democratic energy source, which means that this energy source is (relatively) available everywhere. Solar energy can also be installed starting from a small scale, such as street lighting, or household-scale rooftop solar power plants to utility-scale solar power plants.
Generasi Energi Bersih (GEN-B) is a youth community that focuses on efforts to reduce individual carbon footprints. This community is affiliated with the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR). To celebrate Indonesia’s 79th independence this year, the GEN-B community initiated the installation of public street lighting in Karang Tengah Village.
In Karang Tengah Village, there is the Leuwi Hejo tourist area, Sentul, Bogor. The Leuwi Hejo area is famous for its natural scenery, especially waterfalls (Curug – red). Curug Leuwi Hejo is one of the tourist attractions in this area. The Leuwi Hejo area is actually connected to the PLN network. However, at several points on the road, there are still locations without lighting. One of them is on the road to the pengajian house located on Jalan Wangun 3, Karang Tengah Village, Babakan Madang District, Bogor Regency, which still does not have adequate street lighting.
Solar energy is a democratic and flexible energy source, which means that the capacity of solar energy can be adjusted according to needs. Arkandhia Saputro, Coordinator of the Installation Team, Generasi Energi Bersih Indonesia explained that for Solar Street Lighting (Penerangan Jalan Umum – PJU) the lamp power can be selected up to a maximum of 50 watts.
“Now we install a 20 watt lamp. This can be a maximum of 50 watts, only for 50 watt DC current lamps are not widely available in electrical equipment stores. Need to order it,” he said.
“Alhamdulillah, here we have installed one solar lighting so it is brighter, we can utilize the ray of the sun from Allah SWT to become electricity for residents’ access to tourism and to religious studies, I hope that it can be increased to 10 more Solar lighting in the future,” said Utun Mahpud, Head of the Leuwi Hejo Tourism Cooperative.
The activity of installing public streetlights is one of the initiatives of Gen-B which aims to enhance access to clean energy in tourism locations that still need additional access to electricity and learning facilities for the community to use clean energy.