Vice President Ma'ruf Expects Local Government To Actively Facilitate Geothermal Utilization Activities

Screenshot of Vice President Ma'ruf Amin giving a speech at The 9th Indonesia International Geothermal Convention And Exhibition (IRGCE) 2023/ANTARA

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin hopes that local governments will play a more active role in facilitating geothermal utilization or exploration activities. This is one of the messages and hopes conveyed by Ma'ruf at The 9th Indonesia International Geothermal Convention And Exhibition (IRGCE) 2023, at the Jakarta Convention Center, Jakarta, today. "I hope that local governments can play a more active role and become facilitators in business activities and use geothermal," said Vice President Ma'ruf as quoted by Antara, Wednesday, September 20. He asked for improvements in data quality and incentives in geothermal exploration activities as an effort to reduce the risk of geothermal development in Indonesia, while maintaining a more competitive selling price of geothermal electricity. In addition, program support and mechanism improvement are needed to attract more interest from geothermal developers in Indonesia. For example, he said, the Priority and Exploration Survey Assignment program that has been carried out by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources needs to be expanded in locations where the data is not sufficient to make it easier for developers. He said the government had provided incentives for geothermal exploration in the form of funding through the Geothermal Sector Infrastructure Financing Program and the Geothermal Resources Risk Mitigation Program. He hopes that geothermal developers can make the best use of the facilities. Furthermore, he said, the existence of geothermal plants is expected to contribute to boosting local economic growth, especially in infrastructure development and increasing local community income. The vice president encouraged local governments and geothermal developers to work together to maximize the potential for direct use of geothermal, both for processing in the agricultural sector, educational recreation facilities, and tourism in managed areas. According to him, local governments must play a more active role in providing a holistic understanding to the public regarding the potential, impact, and prospects for implementing geothermal development projects in their respective regions. "Finally, I would like to convey that most of the geothermal sources are in forest areas. Management that does not pay attention to ecosystem carrying capacity has the potential to cause forest damage and threaten animal life. For this reason, efforts to preserve forest areas in geothermal resource areas need to be carried out continuously," he explained. He hopes that the IIGCE 2023 forum can become a medium to exchange knowledge, experience, ideas, and breakthroughs as well as the best practices in managing and developing geothermal as an effort to transition energy to the Clean Zero Emission in 2060 or sooner.

"Finally, by saying bismillahirrahmanirrahim, the 9th International Geothermal Convention and Exhibition of 2023, I officially declare it open," said the Vice President.