Indonesia’s Vast Solar Energy Potential
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David Firnando Silalahi (a), Andrew Blakers (a), Matthew Stocks (b), Bin Lu (a), Cheng Cheng (c), Liam Hayes (a)
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(a) School of Engineering, Australian National University, Canberra 2600, Australia
(b) College of Engineering and Computer Science, The Australian National University, Australia
(c) Research School of Electrical, Energy, and Materials Engineering, Australian National University, Australia
In this paper, we conclude that Indonesia has vast potential for generating and balancing solar photovoltaic (PV) energy to meet future energy needs at a competitive cost. We systematically analyse renewable energy potential in Indonesia. Solar PV is identified to be an energy source whose technical, environmental and economic potential far exceeds Indonesia’s present and future energy requirements and is far larger than all other renewable energy resources combined. We estimate that electricity consumption in Indonesia could reach 9000 terawatt-hours per year by 2050, which is 30 times larger than at present. Indonesia has abundant space to deploy enough solar to meet this requirement, including on rooftops, inland reservoirs, mining wasteland, and in combination with agriculture. Importantly, Indonesia has a vast maritime area that almost never experiences strong winds or large waves that could host floating solar capable of generating >200,000 terawatt-hours per year. Indonesia also has far more off-river pumped hydro energy storage potential than required for balancing solar generation.
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Silalahi DF, Blakers A, Stocks M, Lu B, Cheng C, Hayes L. Indonesia’s Vast Solar Energy Potential. Energies. 2021; 14(17):5424. https://doi.org/10.3390/en14175424
