In November of final 12 months, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo officially inaugurated the Cirata photo voltaic farm in West Java. Constructed on a reservoir utilizing hundreds of floating photovoltaic (PV) panels, the Cirata facility has a producing capability of 145 MW which makes it the most important floating photo voltaic farm in Southeast Asia.
It additionally represents an vital proof of idea which is that Indonesia is, certainly, able to constructing new photo voltaic capability at utility scale when it desires to. Regardless of years of efforts aimed toward jump-starting funding in photo voltaic, uptake has been extremely sluggish. Might Cirata auger a breakthrough and if that’s the case, how?
Constructed at a price of around IDR 1.7 trillion (slightly over $100 million), Cirata is a three way partnership between Indonesia’s state-owned electrical utility PLN, and a renewable vitality agency from the United Arab Emirates known as Masdar. Masdar is the minority shareholder, holding 49 p.c of the fairness. The remaining 51 is held by PLN via a subsidiary.
Masdar is well capitalized – the agency ended 2022 with the equal of over $800 million money available – and has highly effective backers within the UAE. Masdar’s shareholders are the Abu Dhabi Nationwide Oil Firm, the Mubadala Funding Firm, which is Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund, and the Abu Dhabi Nationwide Vitality Firm.
Apart from Cirata, Masdar has been very lively in Indonesia’s burgeoning renewable vitality sector. It took a 47.5 p.c stake in Solar Radiance, a three way partnership fashioned with Indonesian coal firm PT Mitrabara Adiperdana to provide photo voltaic panels. When Indonesia’s state-owned oil and fuel big Pertamina partially listed its geothermal subsidiary on the Indonesia Inventory Change final 12 months, Masdar acquired a 15 p.c stake.
What Masdar appears to know is that in Indonesia, getting initiatives fast-tracked and accomplished is commonly about discovering the precise native companions. By partnering with PLN to develop the Cirata photo voltaic farm, for example, Masdar assured that essentially the most highly effective participant in Indonesia’s electrical energy sector had a vested curiosity in seeing the challenge via to completion. This put Cirata in a greater place to beat the form of political and financial hurdles which have usually derailed renewable vitality initiatives up to now.
Free market purists will seemingly discover this objectionable, as partnering with a subsidiary of a state-owned electrical utility to construct an influence plant that can then promote electrical energy again to that exact same utility goes in opposition to a lot of what we’re taught about how markets are imagined to work. Nonetheless, markets in Indonesia usually function in accordance with their very own logic. Understanding and adapting to that logic and the motivation constructions it creates, quite than attempting to impose the logic of a free market upon it, is essential to getting issues finished.
Masdar’s method could be usefully contrasted right here with that of the Simply Vitality Transition Partnership (JETP), the proposed $20 billion clear vitality fund being spearheaded by the U.S. and its allies. When the JETP launched its funding roadmap in November 2023, the identical month Cirata was formally inaugurated, the plan known as for quite a few regulatory reforms that will permit market-based mechanisms like worth indicators to unleash a giant funding growth in photo voltaic.
One of many reforms particularly requires placing an finish to personal builders chopping PLN in as an fairness associate in joint ventures. The argument right here is that an electrical utility like PLN ought to play the position of market facilitator and de-risker for personal capital, and that when it enters the market as a direct participant it creates distortions.
That may be true, within the summary. But it surely’s additionally true that PLN has much less incentive to facilitate and de-risk personal funding if it has nothing to realize from it. If the JETP plans to attend round for Indonesia’s vitality sector to evolve into an environment friendly market that’s responsive to cost indicators, and during which PLN performs the position of facilitator quite than participant, the wait might be a long one.
In the meantime, as an alternative of attempting to rework Indonesia into a sort of environment friendly market that it has by no means traditionally been, Masdar is already within the nation constructing utility-scale photo voltaic and manufacturing photo voltaic PV panels. And it’s doing so by coming into into joint ventures and funding partnerships with Indonesian stakeholders that may make issues occur shortly, like Pertamina and PLN.
Is that the precise or greatest choice to speed up renewable vitality improvement in all circumstances? I don’t know. However I do know that if Indonesia is to hit its bold emission discount targets, we must always preserve an open thoughts and contemplate all choices. That features counterintuitive preparations which will go in opposition to mainstream financial logic, like chopping PLN in as an fairness associate in photo voltaic farms or making a three way partnership with a coal firm to fabricate photo voltaic panels.
