By : Dr.-Ing Eko Adhi Setiawan
Director of Tropical Renewable Energy Center, University of Indonesia
In the world of renewable energy, there are two technology that develop fast in research and implementation, i.e. wind turbine and solar panel. In 2017, development of wind turbine already reached 36%, solar panel 27%, water turbine 22%, bioenergy 12%. Capacity in total of installed solar panel is almost 400 gigawatts, and wind turbine is almost 510 gigawatts in around the world. In five years from now, development of renewable energy capacity are estimated to grow, especially for solar panel and wind turbine up to 80%. It shows that renewable energy will be the main key in development of world economics.
The opening of 75 Megawatts Wind Energy Power Plant on early July by Mr. President is a positive witness that the government starts to give a more attention to development of renewable energy in Indonesia. Development of first commercial Wind Farm in Indonesia and the biggest in Southeast Asia will be a bettinng, “Will this system be a model in development of renewable energy in Indonesia or only being a symbol of momentary euphoria?
In early period of Wind Energy Power Plant Installation in Nusa Penida, it has nine turbines with 735 kilowatts in total that installed since 2007. Unfortunately, That power plant could not be used after several years ago. Furthermore, solar power power plant for street light in Jakarta that already installed in 1500 spot has the same condition with power plant in Nusa Penida. It was only used for six years and could not be operated anymore.
We already known that experience, knowing about technology, desire and capability to manage utilization of renewable energy in Indonesia is still low rather than other countries. In Europe and America, establishment of renewable energy especially solar panel and wind energy starts since 20’s century. Today, they already start another phase called re-powering. Repowering is how to utilize a chance to gain bigger electicity with an asset that already exist, or establish renewable energy system with less plants but produce bigger amount of energy. Re-powering is important because most of renewable energy power plants in those countries already reach 20 until 30 years. The objectives of repowering is not only for repairing, restoring, and renovating, but it focus to improving life cycle performance of system, reducing a risk, and improving a benefits during the operation of power plants.
Those two realities show there is a big gap between countries that just started with countries that already stepped into re-powering phase in renewable energy. Stakeholder of renewable energy in Indonesia should learn from experiences that already happened in some aspect, such as finance and policy.
From discussion above, there are some point of view for renewable energy development energy in Indonesia. Firstly, We hope that we will not make the same mistakes that happened in developed countries, so there will be no failed project that cause the society becomes sceptic to renewable energy implementation. Secondly, the relation between institution that focused in renewable energy will be more synergistic, so development and management of renewable energy will be better. Lastly, we can produce a new innovative idea that can be felt by the society.