Jakarta - Professor of Energy Systems Analysis from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Prof. Kornelis Blok, said that Indonesia is able to implement a renewable energy system because of its archipelago so that it has diverse energy potential.
"So I think we can conclude that a 100 percent renewable energy system can also be implemented in a complex country like Indonesia," said Prof Kornelis Blok as a guest speaker in a Lecture Series themed "Energy Transition Towards Zero Emissions" at the Center for Behavioral and Circular Economy Research of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN), Jakarta on Tuesday (23/4/2024).
Kornelis also said that Indonesia is very rich in energy resources, especially renewable ones, so it has the potential to build solar power plants, wind energy, hydroelectric power plants, bioenergy, geothermal energy, and ocean energy.
"We found that renewable resources are sufficient to fully decarbonize Indonesia's electricity system," Kornelis said.
Kornelis also said that the scenario and key to Indonesia's success in decarbonizing is through the energy transition to phase out fossil fuel power plants.
In an effort to map the decarbonization, Kornelis used the Calliope model. Calliope is a power system simulation model that takes into account all the important elements of the system, namely electricity generation, electricity storage, and building transmission networks.
"The entire transmission system that delivers power from one area to another is an important element. The second is how tu resources are spread across the country. The third is how much the various resources cost because that is important for optimization," said Kornelis.
If you look at the synthesis map of Indonesia, which has important potentials such as solar power and offshore wind, most say the best potential is in the far east. However, there is also potential in other areas because of offshore wind potential. Thus, not only focusing on one type of renewable resource, but also developing other resources such as hydropower and geothermal power generation.
In addition, there is also ocean thermal energy conversion that utilizes the temperature difference between deep sea water and sea surface water, which is also a relatively young technology but has great potential in Indonesia.
"If we calculate all this potential, we can conclude that the total is around 20,000 Terawatt Hours (TWh) per year, which depending on the projections we use, is much larger than demand. This is complementary between different sources in some regions," Kornelis explains. (InfoPublik)