RI Offers power sector investment opportunity to U.S business delegation

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Ministry of Indudstry has offered an opportunity to a United States trade delegation grouped in the US-ASEAN Business Council for Indonesia for investment in the electricity sector.

"Our energy policy now is building coal-fired power plants. And we are also using hydro and geothermal energy in power generation because it is cleaner," Minister of Industry Fahmi Idris said after receiving a 30-member American business delegation grouped in the US-ASEAN Business Council untuk Indonesia, in Jakarta on Friday.

He said that the Ministry of Industry offered the US businesspeople an opportunity for investment in the power sector on the special consideration that the United States has the technology for building geothermal power plants.

Right now, he said, the government cannot recommend gas for use as alternative energy as the government has decided to export this commodity and use it only for industrial establishments.

"We are only using gas for export and for industrial purposes, such as for the fertilizer industry, as gas is the main component in the production of fertilizers. It is also used by the ceramic industry," he said.

He also said that the use of turbines in Indonesia produces only two megawatts (MW), and this is too small. Therefore, he added, the government wished to invite foreign investors with a technology to build higher capacity turbines in Indonesia.

Fahmi said Indonesia wished to build power plants with a capacity to raise power generation from 2 MW to 7 MW, and even to 600 MW. It is for these purposes, he said, that the government has invited so many foreign investors to build the electricity sector in Indonesia.

He told the American business delegation that the government has established cooperation with Iceland in building geothermal power plants, while that country was also keen to produce aluminium in Indonesia.