by Bambang Purwanto
JAKARTA, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia's state-owned electricity company PT PLN and its subsidiaries have collaborated with the Indonesia Battery Corporation (IBC) to build a battery energy storage system (BESS) with a capacity of 5 Megawatts (MW) this year.
This collaboration was confirmed in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding on the strategic cooperation for the acceleration of the battery industry and the electric vehicle program in Indonesia between the PT PLN group and the IBC on March 16.
The program is a follow-up to the IBC's work plan to start a storage battery ecosystem in Indonesia as an effort to accelerate the green energy transition and achieve the net zero emission (NZE) by 2060.
The PLN's Director of Corporate Planning Evy Haryadi said the company realized that the development of new and renewable energy really needs a good BESS.
"The development of renewable energy plants is currently dominated by solar power plants and wind power plants, which are intermittent, and so they require batteries to provide a consistent electricity supply," Haryadi said in a statement in Jakarta on Thursday.
Moreover, PT PLN has a plan to have a program on the conversion from a diesel generating power to a new and renewable energy which will be implemented in the near future, he said, adding that in line with the plan, the role of a BESS is very important to make the electricity supply to the community run around the clock.
In building this BESS, PT PLN has its subsidiaries engaged in the generation sector, namely PT Indonesia Power (IP) and PT Pembangkitan Jawa Bali (PJB), as well as the Electricity Maintenance Center business unit, as in the future, BESS technology would be applied to all power plants belonging to the PT PLN Group.
"The implementation of the cooperation that will be carried out by PT PLN, IP, PJB, and IBC in 2022 is to form a joint operation cooperation for the BESS pilot project of 5 MW," he said.
He also hoped that after conducting a joint pilot project, the joint operation would be directly implemented in PT PLN's de-dieselization program.
The IBC's finance director Bernardi Djumiril positively welcomed the collaboration between the IBC and the PLN Group which will accelerate the development of BESS in Indonesia, as this is in accordance with the company's goal to produce high-quality batteries at lower prices.
"The development and research must be encouraged in such a way that the BESS development can be accelerated properly and effectively," Bernardi said.
With the cooperation, the IBC's vision to create an integrated battery industry from upstream to downstream can be realized more quickly.
In addition, PT PLN is also collaborating with PT Energy Indonesia Berkarya (EIB), which is a subsidiary of the Sinarmas Group (one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia), in developing the electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem in Indonesia.
PT PLN and PT EIB will cooperate in providing an EV Charging facility in the form of electric vehicle charging station, electric vehicle battery exchange station, and home charging facility.
In addition, PT PLN and PT EIB will also cooperate on providing two-wheeled and four-wheeled electric vehicles, strategic development in the scope of green tourism, smart regions, green corridors and digital signage.
According to Indonesian Minister of Industry Agus Gumiwang Kartasasmita, the year 2022 will be a pivotal moment for the development of lithium batteries for electric vehicles.
This is because several investors in Indonesia will start the construction of their factories in an effort to process nickel and cobalt into raw materials for lithium batteries, the minister said in a statement on Thursday.
"The government targets that by 2024 electric cars produced in Indonesia will already use electric batteries and also other important components produced in our country," he said. ■