Indonesia's energy sector seeing insignificant changes: Lawmakers

Indonesia's energy sector seeing insignificant changes: Lawmakers

Two years after getting into office, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and Vice
President Jusuf Kalla have not yet been able to make significant changes to
improve Indonesia's energy and mineral resources sector, lawmakers have
said.

House of Representatives deputy speaker Agus Hermanto said Indonesia's
energy resilience had continued to decline because the government still
relied on fossil fuels and had yet to significantly develop renewable energy
sources despite the existence of the 2014 Geothermal Law the House passed to
eliminate obstacles for the country to develop geothermal energy.

As Indonesia had officially ratified the Paris Agreement on climate change,
Agus said, the Jokowi administration should maximize the use of the
country's potential geothermal energy, which could produce an estimated 29
gigawatts of electricity and be environmentally friendly.

"Geothermal energy fulfills the principles of mitigating impacts to the
climate. [In Indonesia] the utilized geothermal energy currently amounts to
only around 5 percent of the total potential. Therefore, we should boost its
development," Agus told journalists on Thursday.

A member of the House's Commission VII overseeing energy, Rofi Munawar, said
the implementation of the government's national energy reorientation program
was still far from what had been targeted, even though it had been supported
by a national law. The program mandates more development and use of new and
renewable energy.

The lawmaker further criticized the government's poor commitment to
implementing the 2009 Mining Law, which required mining firms to process
minerals in local smelters before selling them overseas. He referred to the
government's plan to ease raw ore exports for companies that had not
finished building smelters.

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Ref:
http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2016/10/20/indonesias-energy-sector-seein
g-insignificant-changes-lawmakers.html

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John Diecker
APT Consulting Group Co., Ltd.

www.aptthailand.com