Arifin Panigoro, The Conglomerate Owner Of The Medco Group, Said That Indonesia Is Still 'Dreaming' To Develop EBT

JAKARTA - Taipan Arifin Panigoro assessed that the development of new and renewable energy (EBT) in Indonesia is still a dream. According to the conglomerate owner of the Medco Group, Indonesia is still far behind when compared to neighboring countries in the Asean region.

The Forbes version of the 47th richest person in Indonesia explained that in fact the government should look more realistically on an overly optimistic target, namely targeting a new and renewable energy mix of 23 percent by 2025.

"Because when referring to domestic new and renewable energy (EBT) project contracts, the amount is still very far apart." Arifin said in a discussion on Imagining Indonesia Energy Future, Tuesday, March 9 yesterday.

For example, according to Arifin, the solar energy project in Bali with a capacity of 50 megawatts (MW) is one of the largest domestic projects. However, it is still far from being compared to Vietnam, where the largest capacity of their solar energy has reached 4,000 MW.

"We are still at the dream level. We are far behind," he said.

In addition, said Arifin, although Indonesia is a tropical country that has longer sunlight than other countries, the quality is not too good. For that, according to him, Indonesia needs to do research first so that it can become a reference to maximize its domestic potential.

For information, Indonesia is pursuing a 23 percent NRE mix target in 2025 and is targeted to be higher to 31 percent in 2050. In 2020, the achievement of the EBT mix in the country has only reached 11.5 percent.

The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources targets the installed capacity of EBT-based generators to reach 11,373 MW this year. This figure has increased by around 906 MW from the actual installed capacity in 2020 which reached 10,467 MW.