Renewable Energy in Indonesia: Current Status, Potential, and Future Development

Abstract

The current use of fossil fuels has a significant impact on increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Subsequently, renewable energy is significantly needed to reduce GHG, thereby limiting the impact of extreme weather and climate while ensuring reliable, timely, and cost-effective supply. As a big country with a huge amount natural resource, the demand for renewable energy in Indonesia has increased along with the rise in consumption. Following this, energy consumption increased by 0.99%, which was approximately 939.100 million BOE in 2021 for biogas, oil, electricity, natural gas, coal, LPG, biodiesel, and biomass. Energy consumption in several sectors including transportation has the largest energy consumption with approximately 45.76% of oil. In industries and households sector, the consumption rates are 31.11% for boiler steam generation purposes and 16.89% for electricity as well as LPG. Furthermore, the commercial sector consumes 4.97% of energy for lighting and air conditioning, while the remaining 1.27% is used for other sectors. Meanwhile, Indonesia has high potential for renewable energy at 419 GW including 75 GW of hydro energy, 23.7 GW of geothermal, 32.6 GW of bioenergy, 207.8 GW of solar, 60.6 GW of wind, and 19.3 GW of micro-hydro. Therefore, the main focus of this paper is to provide a detailed analysis of the current status, prospects, and information on Indonesia’s renewable and sustainable energy sources. Furthermore, the novelty of this research entails updating the latest data related to renewable energy and its availability in Indonesia. The essence is to portray a picture of its potential development in the future.