Steady-State and Indonesia’s Energy Resilience

Every morning, people need a way to get to work. Some ride motorcycles, some drive cars and others take public transport. Their aim is the same: to arrive on time at an affordable cost. Yet the amount of energy used for those journeys can vary.

At petrol stations, travel needs are reflected in purchases of petrol and diesel. In government planning, those purchases become figures for consumption, import requirements and refinery capacity. But people buy fuel so that they can travel. Using more petrol does not necessarily mean that journeys have become easier or cheaper.

This opens up a broader discussion about energy security. We need to ensure supplies are available when required, while also finding ways for people to travel and carry out their daily activities using less energy.

The scale of Indonesia’s supply needs is evident in its oil trade. In a report updated on 25 August 2025, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) recorded Indonesia’s imports of crude oil and condensate at about 354,000 barrels per day in 2024. In the same year, imports of petroleum products reached 791,000 barrels per day.

The two figures represent different needs. Crude oil is a feedstock for refineries, while petroleum products include processed goods such as petrol, diesel, LPG and other products. Therefore, not all petroleum product imports are vehicle fuels. The EIA recorded that petrol and blending components accounted for about 45 per cent of Indonesia’s total petroleum product imports in 2024.

Strengthening production, refining, reserves and distribution remains necessary. But increasing supply should go hand in hand with an assessment of rising consumption. Are people travelling more often and business activity expanding? Or are the vehicles and equipment they use still wasting energy?

The steady-state concept helps us consider how society’s needs can be met without continually increasing resource use.

Understanding the steady state

Ecological economist Herman Daly developed the concept of a steady-state economy to describe an economy that maintains population and the stock of physical capital at relatively stable levels, while keeping material and energy use low. Quality of life can continue to improve, but resource use must remain within the environment’s capacity to regenerate resources and absorb waste.

This idea is different from simply having a stable energy supply. Refineries operating continuously or petrol prices remaining unchanged do not in themselves represent a steady state. The concept concerns the amount of resources used across all economic activity, not merely the reliability of supply.

Daly distinguishes improvements in quality of life from increases in material and energy use. Knowledge, technology and the organisation of economic activity can improve without necessarily requiring greater resource use.

The distinction is easy to imagine in the journey to work. More reliable public transport can help someone arrive on time. A shorter journey can reduce time spent on the road. The benefit lies in making travel easier, not in buying more petrol.

Indonesia still needs to increase energy supply to support development. Households, schools, health facilities and businesses need energy. However, every increase in supply should be accompanied by efforts to reduce waste.

The steady-state idea can be used to assess the direction of that development. Does an investment help people meet their needs? How much energy does it require? Can resource use and its environmental impact be sustained over the long term?

Reducing supply requirements

Energy savings are closely linked to supply security. In its ASEAN Energy Security Review, the International Energy Agency (IEA) explains that efficiency and demand management can curb the growth in energy needs, reduce import dependence and improve a system’s ability to adapt to change.

If the same journey requires less fuel, the amount of supply that must be secured is also lower. Procurement and storage remain necessary, but savings help reduce the scale of demand that needs to be met.

Nevertheless, more fuel-efficient vehicles will not necessarily bring down national fuel consumption immediately. Total consumption can still rise if the number of vehicles and distance travelled increase faster than efficiency improves.

The government should therefore monitor two measures together: fuel used per kilometre travelled, and the total amount of fuel consumed by all vehicles. A fall in the first measure does not guarantee a fall in the second.

The same principle applies to industry. Machinery may use less energy to produce a unit of goods. But total energy use across all factories can still increase as production grows.

This is where efficiency differs from a steady state. Efficiency measures the energy required to produce goods or carry out a particular activity. A steady-state approach, by contrast, examines total resource use. In Daly’s thinking, increasingly efficient technology still needs to be accompanied by controls on the total amount of resources used.

Sustainability must also be assessed separately from the source of supply. Domestic energy can help reduce dependence on external suppliers. But we must still consider resources depleted, waste produced and environmental impacts.

Daly emphasises that renewable resources should be used at a rate consistent with their ability to regenerate. The use of non-renewable resources should be balanced by the development of replacement energy, while waste must remain within the environment’s capacity to absorb it. These principles provide a strong basis for assessing energy resilience over the long term.

Choosing the right investments

Indonesia can bring these questions into its investment assessments. Before deciding to add capacity, the government should identify the main need to be met, then compare different ways of meeting it.

In transport, for example, the primary need is people’s mobility. Investment assessments can focus on how many people can travel, journey times, fares and energy use. These measures help compare the benefits of building roads, improving public transport and other transport options.

Supply planning should also use several scenarios. For example, one test scenario could assume current travel patterns. Another could include assumptions about better public transport, more fuel-efficient vehicles and greater use of electric vehicles.

Each scenario should set out its assumptions and cost details. The use of electric vehicles, for instance, must be included in calculations of national electricity demand. Assessments should consider changes in overall energy needs, rather than stopping at a reduction in petrol purchases.

These calculations will help determine investment choices. If fuel demand remains high, additional processing and storage capacity may indeed be needed. But if some demand can be reduced by improving the transport system, that option should be assessed on an equal footing with the costs of expanding supply.

Scenario testing should also cover potential disruptions. For example, if fuel deliveries from one supplier are delayed for two weeks, how long could workers’ commutes, food deliveries and business activity continue? Are alternatives available? How quickly could supplies be restored?

With this approach, energy resilience is measured by the ability to keep society’s activities running. Stock levels remain important, but the value of those reserves depends greatly on the scale of demand and the ability to distribute them.

Budgets and incentives can then follow the results of these assessments. Every proposed investment should specify the need it addresses, the cost to the public, changes in energy consumption and environmental impacts over its lifetime.

Reducing consumption must not come at the expense of accessibility. People must not lose the ability to work simply because they have no choice of transport. Households also continue to need energy for lighting and everyday appliances. Savings should come from improving how needs are met, not excluding those needs from the calculation.

The steady-state principle provides a basis for asking whether improvements in quality of life must always be accompanied by greater resource use. For Indonesia, this question can complement efforts to strengthen energy production, reserves and distribution.

For people travelling to work, the results are tangible: transport is available, fares are affordable and workplaces remain accessible even when supply disruptions occur. If those journeys require less energy, the amount of fuel that must be secured also falls. That is where energy resilience can go hand in hand with sustainability.