The government plans to build an underwater power cable to connect five main areas of electricity in Indonesia or what is known as the Nusantara Supergrid Electrical Network. With the interconnection of the Supergrid power network, scattered sources of new renewable energy (EBT) can be utilized optimally so that the national EBT-based energy mix can increase.
“We will create what is called a national super grid or super grid because we are an archipelago consisting of 17,000 or 18,000 islands which in time we will connect with underwater power cables,” said the Secretary General of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Rida Mulyana This afternoon at the 2023 Indonesian Youth National Committee (KNPI) National Working Meeting in Bandung, Saturday (2/4).
Rida gave an example, the construction of the Supergrid is similar to the Telkom cable network which connects all parts of Indonesia through undersea cables.
“The supergrid is like what we are now connected to with Telkom cables throughout Indonesia, to any sub-district that has been connected. That is due to the existence of an underwater Telkom cable. We will also connect between islands with power cables like Telkom,” added Rida.
Rida also ensured that the construction of the Supergrid would be realized to distribute electricity from one point to another to optimize EBT power sources spread across almost all parts of Indonesia from Papua to Aceh.
“God willing, this super grid will be realized to distribute electricity from one point to another because renewable energy sources are spread throughout Indonesia, from Papua to Aceh, while those who use them are on the island of Java, so the electricity must be transported. Rida explained.
The development of the Super Grid as an EBT-based electricity distribution solution was previously announced by the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif at the 2022 BloombergNEF Summit entitled ‘Indonesia’s Sustainable Energy Transition Ambition’ in Nusa Dua, Bali last year.
At present, Minister Arifin emphasized the same thing that the super grid is one of the efforts to achieve the Net Zero Emissions (NZE) target in 2060 or sooner because many generators are made from EBT. It is also supported that current global issues are related to green industries that produce little or no carbon emissions.
For information, the idea of building the Nusantara Supergrid was initiated by a Professor at the School of Electrical and Informatics Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB), the late Pekik Argo Dahono.
At that time, Pekik expressed his idea to connect the electricity network from Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, to Papua. Because Pekik sees that our NRE potential is uneven and far from demand. One of the conditions for developing EBT is transmission. So the transmission interconnection is very necessary.