Fifty mega watt peak (50 MWp) photovoltaic rural electrification in Indonesia

Indonesia is the world´s largest archipelago which comprises more than 17500 islands. According to national census, the population is now approaching 190 million inhabitants where 60% of them are living in rural areas. Many rural areas are sparsely populated, therefore providing electrical energy through a conventional approach needs intensive capital investment for distribution networks and power plant construction. Some of the goals of the long term national energy development as described in the Second Stage Long-Term (twenty-five year) Development Strategy are to optimize the use of nonexportable energy resources, to increase the share of renewable energy use, and to achieve 100% rural electrification at the end of Five Year Development Plan W. In order to achieve this Indonesian long-term energy development for rural electrification, the attractive solution is to apply photovoltaic systems, especially the Solar Home System. Therefore the Government of Indonesia via the Agency for Assessment and Application of Technology has launched a project which is called “Fifty mega watt peak (50 MWp) photovoltaic rural electrification in Indonesia”. The project target is to electrify one million households in ten years. This paper discusses and elaborates upon the status of the Solar Home System in Indonesia, project implementation and scope of the project