ACE, KEEI conduct joint microgrid study
Saturday, August 27 2016 - 02:20 AM WIB
ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) said it is conducting a joint study for microgrid status and development in ASEAN Member States (AMS) with Korea Energy Economics Institute (KEEI).
ACE said in a statement Friday that the study?s objective is to explore the technology level, economic feasibility, and future prospect of microgrid, as well as to analyze the condition of microgrid construction in the AMS.
For the purpose of this study, ACE and KEEI was also conducting a site visit to one microgrid in Indonesia. This microgrid is located in Sukarasa, a rural village of 106 households in Bogor, 85 km or about 2.5-hour drive from Jakarta. Poor road access brings difficulties to connect this village with the nearest national grid, which is 5-km away from the village. This village was struggling for electricity for a long time until 2012, when Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) built a photovoltaic (PV) and a microgrid with battery management system. Accompanied by MEMR, ACE and KEEI visited this site on August 15, 2016.
The solar microgrid built by MEMR in Sukarasa has a capacity of 15 kWp with 3 (three) distribution systems, providing electricity to 106 households there. The third system is under maintenance since three months ago, so only two remain operational in August 2016 (about 10 kWp). The PV were manufactured by LEN Industri, a state-owned solar PV company in Indonesia. The systems are supported by technology from Leonics, a Thai company, while the battery system is from Nipress, a local batteries manufacturer. The new device is the remote monitoring system (RMS), made by MEMR in collaboration with some universities. As of today, the households only receive electricity for about 2 hours a day. The main problem is one of the systems is shut down for a while. At first, this system addressed the lighting issues only, but today so many villagers have other devices such as TV, mobile phones, etc. To overcome this issue, MEMR planned to collaborate with PLN to extend the national grid to the village. Although the investment is very high and might not be very profitable, this is part of a MEMR?s program to provide good quality electricity to rural areas.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak