Geothermal in Indonesia

The electricity needs in Indonesia hiked rapidly in the 1980s, in which the electricity production by the national electricity company was accounted for 4.3TWh from the year of 1978 to 1979, for 41.9TWh from the year of 1992 to 1993, and the installed capacity at the corresponding period increased from 2300MW to 10900MW, while the popularization on electric appliances was still very lower, only 29.9%. Indonesia, as a country of exporting petroleum, selecting the geothermal energy as replenished energy has been a hot issue in the exploitation of geothermal resources in the world. On the 24^th annual conference in 1995 hosted by Indonesia Petroleum Association, Darcel L. Hulse discussed the government balance policy in respect to electricity market, the government policy to protect the environment and reduce the consumption of petroleum, and reflected the function on Indonesia economy by developing and utilization of geothermal energy. During the first 25-year long-term development period, the annual average increment on GDP was 7%. The goals for the second 25-year long-term development period are to keep this economic increment. In accordance with this increment, the economy will be double in every 10 years; the total consumption of energy will be surged from 450 million barrel equivalent unit in 1993 to 2.04 billion barrel equivalent unit in 2018. Now, Indonesia stands in the turning from resource-based economy to manufacturing-based economy, with the soaring of electricity needs. In 1994, the total generation capacity was 13777MW, on the assumption that the annual average increment on electricity needs in the following 25 years was 7%; the generation capacity can reach 75000MW until the year of 2020. Due to the fact that the industrial centralized areas apart far from each other, except for the grid between Java and Parli Island, there are still no any distribution systems connected to the load center, which leads to the limitation of developing large-scale power station. The locations of power stations should be close to each load center. All these pose a promising environment for geothermal power generation to be competitive in the electricity market. The government of Indonesia made a signature in the climate changing framework agreement in 1992, promising to control, mitigate and protect from the increment on gas emission from warm house. The promotion on developing and utilization of geothermal energy is of greatly supporting to keep this promise.

On the research report issued by Environment and Law Faculty Center of Parcy University in 1991, the charges outside the plant on environment pollution was employed to estimate the environment efficiency on applied geothermal resources. If calculated according to the discharging standard as 5.44kgSO₂ and 952.3kgCO₂ for per MWh for coal generation, for one set of 250MW power station if it was combusting with the coal, its environmental pollution charges outside the plant was accounted for 48 million US dollars/year; if it was employed the natural gas hybrid circulation, the charges was 17 million US dollars/year; if it was powered by geothermal resources, the charges was only 370,000 US dollars/year.

The popularization and exploitation of geothermal resources will not only a decision contributing to environment protection, but also achieve considerable economic benefits. Various generation impacts on GDP can be analyzed by taking an example of Indonesia of which GDP in 1993 was 14.4705 billion US dollars. If to construct a coal power station with the capacity of 1000MW, presumed that the investment is 1.8 billion US dollars and the exploration of coal is likely to spent 0.3 billion US dollars, thus during the 3-year construction period, the investment expenses in order to increase the national production capacity was 0.7 billion US dollars for per year, associated with the government expenses for 37 million US dollars, the GDP was totally increased 0.51%. After the completion and operation of the power station, the GDP could increase 0.48%. If it is changed to construct the geothermal power station and export the corresponding quantity of coal, presumed that the construction expenses for geothermal power station and exploitation expenses for geothermal field are 2 billion US dollars, thus the GDP can surge 0.7%. After the operation, the GDP can increase 0.63% associated with the export of coal. The petroleum consumption for the generation was accumulated 140 million barrel for each year in the whole country. If there were no any new petroleum resources being exploited and put into operation in the 1990s, petroleum is required to be imported after 2000. Therefore, if the geothermal power station is likely to replace the fossil fuel power station and coal still remains to export, operation of 1000MW geothermal power station allows the GDP surging 0.77%, saving 204 million US dollars per year for importing the petroleum.

During the second 25-year long-term development plan period, among 60000MW increased generation capacity, if geothermal resources generate 19000MW, the economic benefits are of considerable significance.

Indonesia envisaged increasing the installed capacity on geothermal power plants to 1255MW until the year of 2003, and 2500MW until the year of 2020 including 74MW for rural electricity and small-sized exploitation, and declining the installed capacity on petroleum power plants from 2210MW in 1993 to 607MW in 2008.