On 9 November in Java, Indonesia’s state-owned utility PLN Group, with Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company PJSC Masdar, inaugurated the 145 MWac Cirata floating solar plant, the largest in the southeast Asia region. The inauguration was attended by the country’s president HEJoko Widodo, and by HE Arifin Tasrif, Indonesia’s minister of Energy and Mineral Resources.
Cirata is Masdar’s first floating PV project and its first renewable energy project in the southeast Asian market. Built on a 250 hectare plot of the Cirata reservoir in the West Java province, it will offset 214 000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
Masdar and PLN NP recently signed an MOU to develop Phase II of Cirata with up to 500 MW additional capacity, following a regulatory development from the ministry of Public Works and Housing in Indonesia that that has increased the proportion of water surface that can be covered, for renewable energy uses, to a maximum of 20 %. In addition to Cirata, Masdar entered in February this year the geothermal energy sector through a strategic investment in Pertamina Geothermal Energy.
Indonesia has plans to increase its renewable energy mix and undertaken to reach net-zero emissions by 2060 or sooner. It has also committed to a 29% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030.
Scaling up renewables could save Indonesia, the largest energy user in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region, as much as US$ 51.7 billion per year when the impacts on air pollution and climate change are included, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
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