Pertamina, Akuo Energy team up to develop renewable energy

State owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina signed on Wednesday a cooperation agreement with French firm Akuo Energy to develop power plants based on renewable energies in Indonesia.

The cooperation agreement was signed by Pertamina?s Director of New and Renewable Energy Yenny Andayani and Akuo Energy CEO Eric Scotto. The cooperation is focused on the development of power based on wind, solar PV, Ocean Thermal Energy Convertion (OTEC).

Yenny noted that the portion of new and renewable energy in the national energy mix now stands at 6 percent and under the National Energy Policy approved last year, their portion should be raised to 23 percent by 2025.

She said Pertamina and Akuo will cooperate in identifying locations where the three types of renewable energy can be developed.

?As publicly known, the government is paying more attention to remote areas which still rely on diesel plants. At present, we are focusing on such areas? she said in a statement released by Pertamina.

In the first phase, both firms will select three islands where they will build power plants in view of the size of each island, their respective population and energy needs. The first power plant they plan to build is a solar PV power plant with a capacity of 5 MW in 2016.

The following year, Pertamina and Akuo Energy will start developing another solar PV power plant with a capacity of 5 MW and a wind farm with a capacity of 60 MW. In 2018, both firms will start developing large scale power plants that will bring the combined capacity of their wind, solar PV and OTEC power plants to 560 MW.

Both firms are not only committed to developing emission-free power plants in Indonesia but also bringing the country into a key player in new and renewable energy development in the region.

Akuo, based in Paris, has invested to develop 600 MW power plants based on renewable energy. It has business units in eight countries, namely Uruguay, Croatia, Poland, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, the United States, Luxembourg and Indonesia. It targets to increase its combined renewable capacity to 3000 MW within five years.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon