House to soon draft geothermal power bill

House to soon draft geothermal power bill

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The House of Representatives endorsed a plan, during a plenary
session on Monday, to draft a law on geothermal power to help
provide legal certainty for investors in the field.

The initiative to draft the law came from House Commission
VIII on energy and mineral resources. The House rarely uses its
right to initiate the drafting of a law.

All nine factions approved the plan.

The Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), the
biggest faction in the House, supported the bill to help guide
the government in formulating its geothermal policy.

"So far, we only have a presidential decree. The law is needed
to serve as an umbrella law on geothermal power," Paulus Maria
Saul De Ornay read out, in his faction statement before the
plenary meeting.

Meanwhile, the Golkar Party faction endorsed the initiative on
the grounds that the Law on Geothermal Power could ensure legal
certainty in the field.

"Legal certainty is important as geothermal power is
considered a high-risk investment for investors," said
Djamaluddin Sahidu, representing his faction, the second biggest
in the House.

Djamaluddin added that presidential decrees often change so it
would not necessarily ensure legal certainty.

Some 349 out of a total of 500 DPR members were present at the
plenary session.

During Monday's plenary meeting, the factions underlined the
importance of geothermal power in Indonesia.

Geothermal power is environmentally friendly and could boost
the supply of electricity power amid the threat of power
shortages, legislators said.

They also said that geothermal power had enormous potential in
Indonesia.

According to a government data, 40 percent of the world's
geothermal resources are located in Indonesia, which could
potentially produce some 20,000 megawatts of electricity.