DEN: National energy resilience starts from the regions
The National Energy Council (DEN) has stressed that national energy resilience must be built from energy resilience in each region by optimising various local energy sources.
“National resilience starts from regional resilience, and energy resilience also starts from energy resilience in each region by using local energy wisdom,” said DEN member Sripeni Inten Cahyani during a dissemination event on the National Energy Policy in Mataram, West Nusa Tenggara, on Thursday.
Sripeni said national energy resilience should be built from energy resilience in areas such as Lombok Island, Sumbawa Island, Papua, Java, and other regions, which are then aggregated into national resilience.
This condition is closely related to how energy sources are brought in and utilised in a region, including the origin of the energy and the level of dependence on supplies from outside the region.
“National resilience is an aggregation of the resilience of each region,” she said.
A region-based approach is important for strengthening Indonesia’s energy resilience amid various potential disruptions to the global energy supply chain.
Each region needs to examine the potential energy sources available to be developed and utilised according to community needs. Some local energy sources include solar energy, biogas, and hydropower.
Sripeni further said that current global geopolitical dynamics, such as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, are putting pressure on national energy resilience in terms of the supply of fuel oil and LPG.
National energy reserves, which are only in the range of 20 days, have been widely discussed by the public. Meanwhile, other countries have reserves of up to 100 days, 90 days, or even 45 days.
“Operational reserves are indeed still at 20 days, and the energy buffer reserves currently have no contents because the country’s fiscal capacity is still limited. Therefore, in the Presidential Regulation, we are given the opportunity to fill them until 2035,” Sripeni concluded.