Government to Kick-Start $56b in ‘Green’ Investments

Jakarta Globe, Tabita Diela, Apr 23, 2015

Photovoltaics on the eastern islands of Sumba are being used for electricity
generation. (Antara Photo/Hafidz Mubarak)

Jakarta. Indonesia will hold a global renewable energy summit next week, marking the launch of the country’s initiative to attract $56 billion in investment in environmentally friendly power generation over the next five years.

The “Tropic Landscape Summit 2015,” next Monday and Tuesday, will bring together government representatives and investors in the renewable energy industry from Australia, Switzerland, China, France, the United States, Britain and Singapore.

“Indonesians will account for 3.5 percent of the world population in 2025, but our fossil fuel reserves are much less than our needs,” Sudirman Said, the minister for energy and mineral resources, said at a press conference in Jakarta on Wednesday.

“If we rely only on fossil fuels, we will run out when the time comes. We don’t have any choice other than to shift to renewable energy,” he said. GA

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Govt highlights renewable energy master plan

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 07/13/2011

According to Indonesia’s economic acceleration and expansion master plan for 2011-2015, the country needs Rp 134.6 trillion (US$ 15.7 billion) in investment to develop renewable energy resources for the next 15 years, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry says.

The funds will be allocated to five regions; Sumatra (Rp 25.06 trillion), Java (Rp 86.3 trillion), Sulawesi (Rp 15.77 trillion), Bali-Nusa Tenggara (Rp 2.64 trillion) and Papua-Maluku (Rp 4.83 trillion).

Supplying the public with renewable energy is a government priority, Renewable Energy and Conservation Director-General Kardaya Warnika said Wednesday.

"The funds will be used to build both infrastructure and generators,” he said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Kardaya added that the government was seeking to increase renewable energy utilization by the public, by endorsing innovations such as solar powered street lights.

The ministry also encourages shopping centers and city malls to produce their own electricity by installing solar panels on their roof tops.

“We are blessed with sunshine throughout the year, so we should use it.

"Even a subtropical country like China is doing so,” Kardaya said.

He also added that the government was promoting biofuel development using coconut husks and jatropha.

Minister for the Environment Rejects Nuclear Power Plant

Thursday, 05 March, 2009 | 14:17 WIB 

TEMPO Interactive, Bandung: The Minister for the Environment Rachmat Witoelar, rejected the development plan of the nuclear power plant (PLTN). “It is a pollutant,” he said yesterday. 

He said that Indonesian workers are not ready to manage nuclear plants, and its construction is expensive. With the same budget which is around US$1.2 billion, he prefers to build a geothermal plant rather than a PLTN. 

He said the renewed energy would replace fossil energy. He mentioned that the priority of alternative energies should be geothermal, solar, wind, and plants. He refused the argument that renewed energy is expensive. 

ANWAR SISWADI