New Zealand – Indonesia Geothermal Story

Indonesia is aiming for an affordable, secure and sustainable energy system, with already ambitious targets to increase its use of renewable energy. The country has set an overall target to have modern new and renewable energy, provide 23% of total primary energy supply (TPES) by 2025, and 31% by 2050.

With Indonesia possessing the second-largest geothermal resources in the world, the geothermal share of the fuel mix is expected to double from 4.7% in 2017 to 9% in 2026. A key strength of geothermal is its ability to act as base-load power, offsetting one of the traditional weaknesses of renewable energy.

Just like Indonesia, New Zealand sits on the ring of fire, with geothermal energy potential. In New Zealand, Geothermal plays important role in energy generation of the country with current installed capacity of 900MW, enabling it to provide approximately 17% of the electricity (New Zealand Electricity Authority, 2018). Some of the earliest large-scale use of geothermal in the world were in New Zealand, with Wairakei being the first geothermal plant opened in 1958. At that moment, Wairakei was the second large-scale plant existing worldwide. Science and engineering skills from New Zealand have contributed to a wide range of geothermal power developments internationally, and to the identification of potential resources in geographies far from our own, including in the Pacific, Latin America, and of course South East Asia, in Indonesia

Both Indonesia and New Zealand place great importance on geothermal energy as part of renewable energy and are committed to further develop and increase utilization of geothermal energy, as electricity supply and direct use, as part of the decarbonization of energy market in achieving sustainability and fighting climate change.