Indonesia

Indonesia’s imports of oil have rapidly increased in recent years. This resource-rich nation is the world’s fourth-largest producer of coal and Southeast Asia’s biggest gas supplier. The country is the largest producer of biofuels worldwide and it is scaling up efforts to exploit its renewable energy potential. Indonesia's importance is underscored by its sizeable population of 250 million people – the fourth-largest in the world – and its significant role as a major producer and consumer of energy in regional and international markets. Indonesia is also the largest economy in ASEAN and an active member of the G20, APEC and ASEAN.

Ambitious government plans to extend electricity access have yielded fruit in Indonesia, where the number of people without access declined from around 100 million in 2000 to around 23 million in 2016 even with a population increase of almost one-quarter. Therefore, Indonesia alone was responsible for 55% of the net decrease in the number of people without access across Southeast Asia since 2000. Those remaining without access in Indonesia are concentrated in a number of provinces, including East and Central Java, East Nusa Tenggara and Papua.

This underscores that there is no uniform solution to meeting Indonesia’s energy access targets, and that a great deal of pragmatism and flexibility will be needed to meet its goal of universal access by 2024. In recognition, the plans introduced by the government of Indonesia are multi-dimensional; they include the extension of the existing grid, promoting micro-hydro and off-grid solar technologies as well as solar-diesel hybrid and isolated diesel generators. While the plans rely heavily on financing from the national utility, Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN), this is largely enabled by the presence of private participation in commercially viable projects in the country’s broad power sector, which gives some latitude to PLN to support projects that the government deems as having social benefits, rather than immediate commercial returns.