VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

State-owned electricity provider PT PLN (Persero) has taken several measures to help mitigate climate change, including optimizing the operation of existing power plants and using more environmentally friendly fuel for the plants.

"Indonesia has committed to reducing carbon emissions to achieve the 17th sustainable development goal (SDG) and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060," Director of Corporate Planning at PT PLN Evy Haryadi said in a statement issued here on Tuesday.

In addition to meeting the public service obligation set by the government, the effort is also the company’s responsibility as part of the international community to jointly mitigate the impact of climate change.

The director said that to achieve carbon neutrality, his company is trying to implement 75 percent of the new and renewable energy mix of the installed electricity capacity of 413 gigawatts (GW), which will also be supported by 19 GW of electricity interconnections from Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Nusa Tenggara regions to Java region.

The company is also planning to implement carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology for steam-fired power plants (PLTUs), cut off the use of PLTUs early, as well as apply new technologies such as biomass and hydrogen, he added.

The enterprise will require US$614 billion in investment to achieve the carbon neutral target by 2060 of which around US$596 billion would be used to improve electricity capacity, while the remaining investment would be utilized to strengthen electricity interconnection.

Hence, these efforts need to be supported with lower-cost green financing, development grants, and cooperation between countries.

"We need a subsidy mechanism to ease the (burden of) increasing (electricity) costs on the customers," he said.

The climate change mitigation effort also needs to be supported by investments and technology sharing by global players in battery energy storage systems (BESS), CCS, and hydrogen technologies.

Haryadi added that his company also requires supporting policies, such as the elimination of import tariffs and the imposition of subsidies to reduce the cost of electric vehicles.  (Antaranews)