JAKARTA - Director General of New Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (EBTKE) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Eniya Listiani Dewi, revealed the difficulty of developing geothermal energy in Indonesia. In fact, Indonesia is known to have geothermal energy potential reaching 23 gigawatts (GW).
Eniya said that Indonesia's geographical location, which is located in the ring of fire zone, has indeed caused Indonesia to become a country with great geothermal potential.
"Surprisingly, this geothermal is indeed widely opposed in several locations. Sometimes local residents do not understand that this drilling will bring electricity," said Eniya, quoted on Friday, July 5.
Eniya said, there are people in several areas that have the potential for geothermal to only focus on the view that the EBT development activity is damaging to the environment.
In fact, he said, the potential for geothermal is spread across Sumatra, Java, Bali, Nusa Tenggara, Sulawesi and DI Yogyakarta. However, its development is quite difficult because it faces several challenges, one of which is community rejection.
On the same occasion, Eniya invited those who understand the potential for geothermal to explain and provide understanding to the general public that the development is carried out to produce more environmentally friendly electrical energy.
"Well, we are together. I ask for all collaboration to be able to explain to the residents that the drilling effort for geothermal is our effort to accelerate the base load for supply electRICity," he said.
Also, another challenge faced in geothermal development is that the interest of industry players to invest in geothermal development is still quite low.
According to him, investors are often worried about low demand for geothermal energy.
Eniya said, if the demand for geothermal energy is still low, it can be used for conversion to hydrogen. Just so you know, hydrogen can be used as fuel for power plants, fuel for transportation to raw materials for fertilizers.
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"We have a lot of geothermal potential, but often the industry for geothermal investment always says this 'if I invest there, the demand is small, ma'am, local is only that much'. Change of your mindset! If we invest for example 10 MW, the demand is only 2 MW, then the 8 MW is used for conversion to hydrogen," explained Eniya.
Eniya ensured that the government would continue to encourage the development of geothermal energy, one of which was by carrying out government drilling as a step to anticipate that the industry would not bear great risks when investing in geothermal development.
"Hopefully this will trigger us to accelerate geothermal utilization," concluded Eniya.
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