Despite its huge potential in renewable energy sources, Indonesia has so far only utilized a very small part of them, with high costs and uncertainty over feasibility among the main problems facing the nascent industry.
Verina J. Wargadalam, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry's renewable energy research group coordinator, said Tuesday that Indonesia's estimated potential of renewable energy capacity from hydroelectric, geothermal and biomass sources alone reached more than 150 gigawatts (GW) annually.
This excludes other highly potential energy resources, such as solar, wind and ocean wave energy.
"Total utilization of renewable energy in Indonesia in 2007 was less than 5.7 GW," she said in her paper abstract for the 2009 International Workshop on Advanced Material for New and Renewable Energy (AMNRE), taking place from Tuesday to Thursday.
In her presentation, Verina broke down the potential capacities of each of the renewable energy sources.
More than 1,300 potential locations for hydroelectric generation are spread across the country, she said, with an annual potential of 75 GW.
More than 252 areas identified as potential geothermal fields have estimated small to intermediate enthalpy of about 30 gigawatts electrical (GWe) and high enthalpy of about 27 GWe.
Agricultural and forestry waste, meanwhile, has potential capacity 50 GW annually.
Although the government has set a target to increase the proportion of renewable energy in its energy mix from year to year, Verina said bringing these highly potential energy resources to mass generation was not fairly feasible just yet.
"Very few industries get involved in research and development activities *for renewable energy projects* because it requires large amounts of money," she said.
"For geothermal energy, for instance, they wouldn't want to invest if there was no certainty. The government, meanwhile, has no money to ensure that deep down there is indeed a huge geothermal potential."
The ministry, Verina added, was researching biomass gasification, fuel cells for power generators, bioethanol from industrial waste, geothermal reservoirs and wind turbines.
She said the ministry would install next year a wind turbine prototype with a capacity of 100 kilowatts in Sukabumi, as part of its cooperation with the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and state air-craft manufacturer PT Dirgantara Indonesia.
"If it works, we will develop it in other regions," Verina said.
"We aim to push industries to get involved in such projects."
The AMNRE workshop drew 150 experts from the field of new and renewable energy from 20 countries, including Southeast Asia, the Netherlands, France, Egypt, Japan and Australia.
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