A woman takes a photo of her friend in front of a trolley at an electric car charging station in Nusa Dua, Bali, where Indonesia is hosting the G20 summit, Sunday. (Putu Sayoga for the Washington Post)NUSA DUA, Indonesia - The streetlights that line the road to Bali Airport are powered by solar energy. Police patrol the streets on electric motorcycles, and drivers transport visiting officers in luxury electric vans.
The global climate crisis is one of the main concerns of this week's G20 summit and Indonesia has gone to great lengths as host to show its commitment to reducing carbon emissions. Yet when world leaders travel across the sun-kissed island of Bali, they are hooked up to an energy grid heavily powered by fossil fuels.
Blessed with abundant renewable energy sources, Indonesia is doing less to realize this potential than most countries of its size. On Tuesday, the country announced it had secured a $20 billion climate finance deal from rich nations, potentially the largest loan in history, but activists and experts say it will wipe out some of the nearly $600 billion , which Indonesia must write off. Eliminate coal power and achieve net zero emissions.
Critics say the country is catching up because leaders have been too slow to move away from fossil fuels and subsidies for dirty energy sources over the past decade. Analysts say Indonesia's experience illustrates the toughest challenges facing developed nations in the green energy transition.
The fossil fuel project stalled a year ago. Now they come back.In 2015, following the election of Indonesian President Joko Widodo, he commissioned a series of projects that will generate 35 gigawatts of new energy, most of it from coal-fired power plants. At the time, 16 percent of the population still had no access to electricity, and authorities believed that the country's growing economy would soon result in an increasing demand for electricity.
By the time it became clear that Indonesia's growth was falling short of expectations, it was already too late. Several dozen new power plants have been connected to the grid and more are under construction. The country's power grid is dominated by coal, which accounts for more than half of electricity generation, double what it was a decade ago, according to the Institute for Basic Services Reform, an Indonesian think tank. Renewable energies have no room to grow.
"It's like extra baggage that the Indonesian government carries around," said Elrika Hamdi, a Jakarta-based energy finance analyst. These are "past mistakes" for which the state is still paying, he added.
Meanwhile, clean energy regulations are inconsistent, onerous and often poorly enforced, proponents say, leaving Indonesia behind other developed nations like Vietnam and the Philippines. According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), an intergovernmental organization helping the country in its clean energy transition. Energy.
Although Bali receives enough sunlight to meet its many times greater electricity needs, its energy needs are met almost entirely by fossil fuel generators on the island and neighboring island of Java. Renewable energy accounts for less than 2 percent of electricity generation, state officials said.
Fishermen in northern Bali have been fighting the expansion of the coal-fired power plant for years, claiming it threatens their existence. "We will accept any power plant that doesn't harm the air, the sea, the water," said Supriyadi, a fisherman from Chelukan Bawang village who goes by only one name. "We just don't want any money."
As rich nations race to warm the planet, the Coalition unveils a noble planIndonesian leaders often describe their fossil fuel dependency as a problem of insufficient alternative financing. Coal, which is plentiful in Indonesia, was the cheapest way to generate electricity in the country for decades. Even today, overcoming the climate crisis cannot replace the need for development, said Investment Minister Luhut Binsar Panjaitan.
"In everything we do, we don't want to stop our economic growth," Luhut said in an interview from his Jakarta office last month. "Even if we implement this new plan, we have to pay attention to the income of the government, the people of Indonesia."
But analysts say that view is outdated and money is only part of the problem in Indonesia.
“It's frustrating because the technological solution exists. Economically and financially there are no longer any hurdles,” says IRENA researcher Nicholas Wagner.
The average amount of solar energy Indonesia receives per square meter is almost double that of some European countries, studies show, and Indonesia has the world's largest geothermal reserves. These conditions allow the country to carry out one of the most dramatic energy transitions in the world, although currently not on track.
© Putu Sayoga for The Washington Post A floating solar panel on Bali's Muara Nusa Dua reservoir promotes the G-20 summit.Last year the government banned the construction of new coal plants but said the rule would not affect an additional 13.8 gigawatts of coal power, enough to power 10 Balis already in the pipeline. Two months ago, the government announced another exception to its ban, allowing new coal-fired power plants that support "national strategic projects" like battery mineral smelters.
In addition, since 2009, the government has required all coal mining companies to sell their output to state-owned companies at below market value. That regulation, which the World Bank has urged Indonesia to scrap, effectively subsidizes coal prices and shifts the energy market toward renewables, analysts say.
Even when the government tries to encourage the spread of clean energy, implementation sometimes goes awry, said Hamdi, an energy finance analyst. For example, a ministerial decision in 2018 to promote rooftop solar panels resulted in people paying more to use them. "On paper," Hamdiu said, "it's not the same as the reality on the ground."
Bali has long sought to become energy self-sufficient, and locals increasingly believe they can achieve that goal with their ambitions to reach net-zero emissions by 2045, 15 years ahead of the rest of Indonesia. A 2017 Asian Development Bank study found that Bali would only need to tap 5 percent of its renewable energy resources to meet its entire electricity needs.
Germany switches on old coal-fired power plant, fueling fears that climate target will be exceededBut without proper central government support, progress is painfully slow, residents say. Between 2012 and 2015, the government opened eight small solar power plants in Bali and placed them under the supervision of local authorities. Only four are still in operation, said the President. The rest suffered great damage. Meanwhile, a new terminal for liquefied natural gas, a type of fossil fuel, is being built in southern Bali.
© Putu Sayoga for The Washington Post Ida Bagus Setiawan, head of the Bali Government Energy Department, on November 13 in Denpasar, Bali."We have big ambitions," said Ida Ayu Dwi Giriantari, a professor at Bali's Udayana University, who wants to see more renewable energy. "But we can't do it alone."
Fabbi Tumiwa, executive director of the Institute for Basic Services Reform, said that while he agreed that Indonesia has been slow to develop so far, renewable energy efforts are increasing.
In September, Widodo issued an ordinance paving the way for the state to close coal-fired power plants earlier. And on Monday, the Indonesian state-owned Perusahaan Listrik Negara announced the early closure of its first coal-fired power plant. Under the terms of the new climate finance agreement, PLN plans to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.
"I was ready to be shocked," says Tumiwa, a former vocal PLN critic.
Not all lawyers are so optimistic, especially in Bali. Most of the more than 600 electric vehicles deployed for the G-20 were brought in from Java and will be delivered after world leaders depart. It's unclear who will be installing the solar panels for the summit, or if there are plans to help local governments replicate them across the island.
"The real challenge," says Ida Bagus Setyawan, director of Bali's government energy department, "came after the summit."
Vinda Charmila in Bali contributed to this report.
