Energy in Indonesia: The Main Factors

Abstract

This chapter will introduce the energy situation in Indonesia as well as the main factors that influence it. Being one of the world's largest archipelagos, Indonesia has a unique and highly distributed power supply system. The population size is the main factor which causes a significant demand for energy. The growing economy of Indonesia brings optimism, including on the subject of renewable energy development. Across Indonesia's area, high levels of solar energy are available the whole year through. However, the present role of the central government in energy development is still very big, which causes inefficiency. This demands a more significant role of local entities, especially governments and the private sector. In our discussions, we mainly refer to statistics from 2017 in combination with older data. An Archipelago with a Unique Power Supply SystemIndonesia is one of the world's largest archipelagos. The country has a total area of 8.3 million km 2 , comprising 77% water surface and 17,504 islands [1]. Around 111 of its outer islands share borders with neighboring countries. As shown in Fig. 1.1, Indonesia stretches over 5,000 km from the East to the West, across South-East Asia and Oceania and two oceans, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific. Most of the citizens live on five major islands, namely Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua. Yet, around 6,000 other islands were inhabited in 2014 [2].