Govt to open tender for operation of solar power plants

In line with a plan to reduce the consumption of expensive diesel for electricity and a commitment to reduce carbon emissions, the government will open a tender for the construction and operation of solar power plants, The Jakarta Globe.com reported on Saturday.

Rida Mulyana, the director general for new and renewable energy and energy conservation at the Energy and Mineral Resources ministry, said on Friday that the government will offer next week 72 locations across Indonesia deemed suitable to develop solar power plants.

?Of those locations, 22 are in Western Indonesia and the remaining 50 locations are in the eastern part of Indonesia,? he said on Friday in Jakarta.

Rida said that the ministry had recently set a price floor for solar energy to attract private investors.

?The price floor for solar energy is between 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt hour. If the local content is above 40 percent then the price floor will be around 30 cents,? he added. ?But it will still be offered through a tender procedure, meaning that the final price may be lower.?

Rida said that the aim of the new policy is to ?partially substitute? the consumption of diesel fuel in electricity generation. He added that solar plants built under the program will not be equipped with storage capacity, so those would only supply energy during periods of sunlight.

?We would still use diesel to generate electricity at night.? The government?s target is for the program to yield benefits by March next year, Rida said.

?For this program, we are targeting more than 150 megawatts of electricity generated through solar energy,? he said, adding that investment in solar energy could cost as much as Rp 20 billion ($2 million) per megawatt, said Rida. (*)