Overcoming Barriers Solar Potential : What are the possible policies support to accelerating the deployment Solar Rooftop for Indonesia’s energy transition?
Sankara Cinthadiliaga - MSc Energy Policy (University of Sussex)
The high proportion of fossil fuels power generation rose CO2 emissions to 1.7 % globally (IEA, 2019). In this regard, the transition to renewables in the electricity sector will have a greater impact on reducing CO2 emission. Under the Paris Agreement, Indonesia pledged and set a strategy to scale up renewable electricity generation (IRENA, 2020) by increasing the share of new and renewable energy up to 23% by 2025 to reduce 29% of its greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (MEMR, 2020). Unfortunately, Indonesia is not on the right track to meet its target. The government reported that the current proportion of renewable energy only about 11,51 % of 13,4% as the 2020 target (EBTKE, 2021). Big effort and strategy needed to achieve the 23% ambitious target.
One effective strategy to meet the target is by accelerating the potential Rooftop Solar Photovoltaic (PV) in the residential area, particularly because Indonesia is located within the equator lines and makes it has abundant solar energy potential. Inevitably, investigating why the country could only install 231,9 MW capacity from its potential 207.898 MW solar (EBTKE, 2020) is necessary to provide robust identification and analysis of challenges and barrier. Furthermore, this investigation will benefit from comparing policies from successful countries such as United Kingdom.
In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the entire socio-economic sector (D’Adamo, Gastaldi and Morone, 2020). For instance, business electricity consumption decreased, while domestic electricity consumption increased significantly due to the lockdown phase (CNN, 2021). This circumstance is a momentum to promote and encourage people to use rooftop solar PV to reduce electricity bills as a sort of initial choice rather than compulsory. It is the best time to look at this because of the need for green post-covid recovery. Finally, this research aims to develop policy recommendations to provide possible solutions.