Indonesia’s Vast Off-River Pumped Hydro Energy Storage Potential

Abstract

Indonesia has vast solar energy potential, far more than needed to meet all its energy requirements without the use of fossil fuels. This remains true after per capita energy consumption rises to match developed countries, and most energy functions are electrified to minimize the use of fossil fuels. Because Indonesia has relatively small energy potential from hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal and ocean energy, it will rely mostly on solar for its sustainable energy needs. Thus, Indonesia will require large amounts of storage for overnight and longer periods. Pumped hydro comprises 99% of global energy storage for the electricity industry. In this paper, we demonstrate that Indonesia has vast practical potential for low-cost off-river pumped hydro energy storage with low environmental and social impact; far more than it needs to balance a solar-dominated energy system.

100% Renewable Electricity in Indonesia

“…Thus, the required storage was in the range 24-40 h of average consumption. This confirmed the estimation in previous work [36] that showed that with its low variability in terms of solar resources, Indonesia will require energy storage for daily use rather than for prolonged periods spanning weeks or months. On a per capita basis, the storage power and energy requirements were in the range of three kilowatts and 30-45 kWh, respectively.…”

“…In our previous works [12,36], we showed that Indonesia has enormous practical potential for solar generation (Section 3.1) and pumped hydro energy storage (Section 3.3). To put this potential in perspective, we note that the per-capita electricity consumption in advanced economies (European Union, USA, Australia, Japan, Singapore) is in the range 6-12 TWh per million people per year [37].…”

“…The potential sites for 150 GWh greenfield off-river PHES in Indonesia are shown in Figure 2. There is a total of 321 TWh of PHES storage volume in the lowest cost classes (A and B) spread all over the archipelago [36] (Table 2). As Indonesian solar resources and electricity demand have low seasonal variations, large-scale (expensive) seasonal storage of energy is not required.…”

Indonesia Post-Pandemic Outlook: Strategy towards Net-Zero Emissions by 2060 from the Renewables and Carbon-Neutral Energy Perspectives

“…With so many options, energy planners can afford to concentrate on those with the lowest likely costs per unit of storage. A total of 321 TWh of high-class off-river PHES was identified in Indonesia (Silalahi et al, 2022).…”