For 58-year-old Ratna Ariati, the sun is not just the source of light and life for everything on earth, but also the energy that keeps her household economic wheels spinning amid a time of high power costs.
Encouraged first by green living hype, Ratna and her husband, Joko Wibowo, 60, bought eight solar panels and installed them atop their roof two months ago.
She said the RP 48 million purchase had been a good investment.
"The monthly power bill has been reduced by 30 percent so far," Ratna told The Jakarta Post.
Ratna used to pay Rp 400,000 (US$43.47) for her monthly power bill, but now she pays closer to Rp 260,000.
Her house has a wattage limit of 2,200 watts and the panels are being used to power all lamps and one computer.
"Each panel has a 75-watt capacity, so together they produce about 1,800 watts per day with three-hour exposure to the sunlight. We store this as electricity in batteries and use it at the night," Joko told the Post at his house.
The panels can last up to 15 years without maintenance.
The utilization of solar-powered electricity in urban households is not new in Indonesia, where high solar intensity of 4.8 kilowatts per square meter is common.
The government itself launched a special program in 2003 to encourage urban households to install solar panels in their homes to reduce the peak load.
However, due to lack of regulatory support from the government, the program ended in failure as the subsidized electricity from state power firm PLN was still much cheaper.
Households using solar panels tend to use the panels to a limited degree, since the technology is still considered too costly.
With a price tag of Rp 4 million to Rp 6 million for a 50-watt panel, a household running on 1,300 watts would need to spend about Rp 600 million to make a complete switch to solar.
The government has recently turned its focus to targeting villages and remote areas to use solar energy, as limited infrastructure often makes PLN service prohibitively expensive.
Currently, the total capacity of installed solar panels in Indonesia is about 10 megawatts and located mostly in remote areas.
The government has been distributing more than 50,000 free solar home system units to households in remote areas across the country. It set aside a budget of Rp 300 billion in 2007 for the program, which will increase to Rp 580 billion in 2008, when the government will give another 20,000 panels away.
In cities, it's a different story. In Jakarta, the only large building to install solar panels is owned by the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology.
However, with oil prices rising and the government trying to cut the power subsidy to reduce the burden on the budget, switching to solar is the right decision, director for renewable energy for electricity at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Kosasih Abbas, told the Post.
"With the burden we have now, the government cannot do much. We cannot keep on subsidizing people. Somehow they have to find solutions to make sure they get electricity," Kosasih said.
The revised 2008 state budget has allocated Rp 60.28 trillion for power subsidies. However, with oil prices expected to rise to more than $120 a barrel, the government raised the allocation to Rp 68.5 trillion.
To keep the budget in check, the government and PLN issued several new policies aimed at reducing the power subsidy.
One of the policies is about applying non-tariff subsidies for people with limits over 6,600 watts. The government is also considering charging consumers using 2,200 watts of electricity capacity, as it has waived the option on raising power rates until 2009.
Under the new policy, Kosasih said, the power rate would reach Rp 1,092 per kilowatt hours (KwH), far above the subsidized price of Rp 614 per KwH should the oil price stay above $100 a barrel. Under those conditions, he said, solar power would be a feasible option as solar-powered electricity carries a price tag of at least Rp 1,900 per KwH.
"When we also include the environmental impact, I think the solar panels will bring more benefit to the people," he said.
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