Indonesia Has Clean Energy Sources at Home and No Need to Import!

PT Pertamina Geothermal Energy Tbk (PGE) continues to promote the utilisation of domestic geothermal potential, noting that the resource is abundantly available within Indonesia, thus removing any reliance on imports. PGE Director of Exploration and Development Edwil Suzandi described the nation’s geothermal wealth as a valuable asset already present in the country. The current focus is on managing this resource in an environmentally friendly manner to provide maximum benefit to the community. “Geothermal is an indigenous resource; it is here, we do not need to import it, we do not need to buy it, but it is in our earth. The challenge is how we can manage it well, in an environmentally friendly way, and also manage the community well. These are the things being worked on by our colleagues at PGE and the geothermal community in Indonesia today,” he stated. Suzandi further explained that the domestic availability of geothermal energy can consistently support national electricity stability, given that its production is not affected by weather or time of day. “We realise that geothermal is similar to fossil energy in that it can support the baseload, or energy that is not influenced by heat, rain, day or night. It will consistently produce electricity in any situation,” he clarified. However, Indonesia has currently only utilised around 11-12% of its total geothermal potential through installed capacity. PGE is therefore committed to increasing its installed capacity from the current 727 Mega Watts (MW) towards a long-term target of 3 Giga Watts (GW). “The target is to become number one in the world, and PGE aims to be the company with the largest installed capacity globally, which is 3 GW. That is our vision going forward,” he concluded.