The Achievement Of The Main Green Leadership From The Government Of The Republic Of Indonesia, This Is Darmawan Prasodjo's Football During PLN

PLN President Director Darmawan Prasodjo. (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - President Director of PT PLN (Persero), Darmawan Prasodjo won the award as CEO of Green Leadership Utama at the Company Performance rating Assessment Program in Environmental Management (PROPER) in 2022, in Jakarta, Thursday, December 29.

The award, which was handed over directly by Vice President Ma'ruf Amin, was given for the leadership of Darmawan, who had brought big changes to make PLN the leading sector in the energy transition.

Darmawan Prasodjo himself is an energy and electricity expert. Accumulating Post Doctoral at the Nicholas Institute Duke University, United States, in the field of energy and environment with a focus on climate change, new renewable energy, energy transition, and international climate agreement.

For the Doctoral level in Applied Economy with a focus on energy policy, energy modeling, and climate change at Texas A&M University, United States.

With his experience, Darmawan was able to lead PLN to successfully carry out transformation within PLN by managing various conditions and business processes for the company, so that it was able to become a pillar of the implementation of the energy transition which became a challenge for the world today.

"In collaboration with the government, PLN can convey that in 2022 it will successfully reduce 32 million metric tons of C02 emissions. This exceeds our Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) target," Darmawan said in an official statement, Friday, December 30.

Darmawan added, PLN realizes this is only the beginning, the energy transition road is still long.

PLN together with the Government have prepared an Electric Power Supply Business Plan (RUPTL) until 2030 as the greenest RUPTL in Indonesia's history.

In the RUPTL, there is 50.6 percent of the construction of power plants based on New Renewable Energy (EBT).

According to this RUPTL, PLN initiated the elimination of 13 PLTU GWs from planning and increasing the EBT capacity to 20.9 GWs without adding new PLTUs.

This step has the potential to reduce 1.8 billion tonnes of CO2 in the next 25 years.

In an effort to accelerate emission reduction, PLN replaces 1.8 GW PLTU with an EBT baseload and replaces 800 MW PLTU with a gas plant.

This effort has the potential to reduce emissions of 2.4 million tons of CO2.

In addition, PLN made a mutual agreement to cancel the 1.3 GW PLTU which is already in pipeline to reduce 175 million tons of CO2 in the next 25 years.

Emission in the national electricity sector every year reaches 244 million tons of CO2 and will continue to increase by more than 1 billion tons until 2060. PLN's efforts to announce a roadmap for reducing emissions to zero by 2060 or Net Zero Emission (NZE) are appreciated by various parties.

"PLN believes that we will zero emissions in the electricity sector by 2060. We have designed each stage clearly through various studies and collaborations from various parties. The challenge is big, but we are committed to doing this because we do really care," said Darmawan.

Under the leadership of Darmawan, PLN is aggressively implementing various programs to implement the NZE 2060 roadmap. This step is fully supported by the DPR RI in the Hearing Meeting (RDP) in May 2021 in the context of early retirement initiatives for coal PLTU in stages from 2021 to 2056. The declaration of NZE 2060 was also brought by PLN at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP) 26 in 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland and COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.

"PLN has energy transition initiative programs that consolidate support from various parties. Both business entities, funding institutions, which are supported by the government to reach NZE 2060," said Darmawan.

In addition to implementing the early retirement stage of coal PLTU, PLN has started implementing co-firing programs at dozens of generators since 2021.

Through co-firing, PLN replaces coal consumption in significant quantities with raw materials for biomass, hydrogen and ammonia.

In addition to reducing emissions, the implementation of co-firing moved the wheels of the local community's economy in providing raw materials.

"This co-firing program has succeeded in reducing emissions of more than 800,000 tons of CO2. In the process, PLN empowers communities such as BUMDes, Farmers Group, and various MSMEs. This is PLN's commitment to transitioning energy while building a populist economic-based energy ecosystem," said Darmawan.

PLN also encourages the use of technology such as Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) to capture generation carbon emissions and utilize them for the needs of the industrial sector.

In addition, Darmawan also started new management of generating waste by utilizing Fly Ash and Bottom Ash (FABA) from PLTU.

The potential of FABA from all PLTU PLN in Indonesia is very large. So that in addition to reducing emissions, the use of FABA will create various new businesses and absorb labor in the community.

"PLN has a very large FABA potential, tens of millions of tons annually. For this reason, we invite various big industry players and MSMEs to produce construction materials with FABA materials," added Darmawan.

With the addition of large-scale EBT generating capacity, there will be fluctuation challenges in terms of electricity supply.

This is because EBT has an intermittent nature, which depends heavily on natural conditions.

So that PLN implements Smart Grids in electrical systems that allow the impact of the EBT electricity supply intermittency to be managed stably.

"PLN has overhauled electricity management by digitizing end to end. From energy supply, generation, transmission, distribution to customer homes, it has been managed in an integrated manner. Fluctuations on the demand and supply sides will be responded to automatically. This is what we call Smart Grid," said Darmawan.

The energy transition is an agenda implemented by various countries in the world. Many business entities are potential markets for green energy as a service products. Since 2021, Darmawan has initiated collaboration with international certification institutions to release Renewable Energy Certificate (REC) products. So that for the first time Indonesia has recognized green energy products and will expand the international market.

"In the past, REC could only be purchased abroad, but now PLN provides it and is ready to compete in the international market. Not only REC, PLN also provides special services with a green tariff mechanism for customers who need pure electricity supply from EBT as proof of its commitment to energy transition," said Darmawan.

With the digital transformation that has been carried out by PLN, the national electric vehicle ecosystem can also be accelerated. The transportation sector contributes carbon emissions of 280 million tons of CO2 every year.

And will continue to increase to 860 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2060.

To reduce emissions in the transportation sector, PLN took the initiative to build collaborations with various manufacturers, distributors, banks, transportation services with support from the government through Presidential Regulation Number 55 of 2019.

"For the first time in Indonesia, close collaboration was built with various parties in encouraging the development of national electric vehicles. We facilitate the franchise business scheme so that all parties can jointly build charging stations in each location. PLN also specifically provides cheap electricity prices for all electric car and motor users in Indonesia," said Darmawan.

With various implementations of the energy transition program in Indonesia, various supports come from the international community.

At the G20 momentum in Bali in 2022, world leaders announced their support for Indonesia, one of which was through the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) program.

The USD 20 billion international aid was disbursed as an initial commitment to driving an energy transition in Indonesia.

"Alhamdulillah, the struggle of the government and PLN has paid off. This is a form of world support for Indonesia. PLN is ready to carry out its mandate to lead the energy transition for a better generation of life in the future," concluded Darmawan.

In addition to the Main Green Leadership CEO award, PLN also received 15 Gold Propers as an appreciation for environmental management commitments.

This year's PLN Gold Propert is the best achievement in history.