Economic and environmental emissions analysis in Indonesian electricity expansion planning: Low-rank coal and geothermal energy utilization scenarios

This paper examines utilization of low-rank coal and geothermal energy resources in the long-term Indonesian electricity expansion planning in high populated islands Java, Madura, and Bali up to 2027. The long-term electricity expansion of these areas meets several problems such as supply security, financial limitation, and environmental issues. Therefore, the modeling of long-term geothermal and low-rank coal utilization is examined in terms of expansion cost as well as the environmental impacts. In 2027, the required capacity to fulfill future demand is estimated 133 GW. Under the coal scenarios, the domination of coal becomes bigger with 75.4 GW or 57% of total electricity generation mix. However, under the geothermal scenarios, the installed power plant form geothermal sources increase to be 7 GW and coal utilization decreases to be only 67.6 GW or 51% of total electricity generation share. In the economic perspective, more geothermal power plant need to be developed in order to reduce to coal utilization in power generation. In the end of planning horizon, the coal scenario emits as much as 487 million tons of CO₂ equivalents, while the geothermal scenario successes to reduce emissions by 43.3 million tons from the coal scenario´s emissions.