As reported this morning from Indonesia, the country’s Directorate General of Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (EBTKE) Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) will auction the Geothermal Preliminary and Exploration Survey (PSPE) Assignment area at the end of September this year. The PSPE area to be immediately auctioned is Wapsalit in Gorontalo, Maluku, with a potential electricity capacity of 5 MW.
ESDM Ministry’s Geothermal Director Ida Nuryatin Finahari said the auction was to pursue the realization of geothermal utilization in generation. The government was open to offers from any company interested in managing the PSPE area.
“If the PSPE is auctioned, the bids will be announced, whoever is interested will just go ahead,” Ida said when met at the Future Renewable Energy Policy discussion event in Jakarta today.
Furthermore Ida said the auction winner could immediately carry out exploration activities. Exploration activities are projected to take three to five years.
Moreover, the Wapsalit area is very easy to develop. Ida said that the project could operate as early as 2022 to 2024 (expected commercial operation date). The working area was held by PLN and was returned to the government in January 2019.
In addition to auctioning the PSPE region, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources also assigned state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to manage four Geothermal Working Areas (WKP) projects, namely the Sembalun WKP with a capacity of 100 MW in West Nusa Tenggara, 85 MW Ranu Lake in North Maluku, Galunggung Mountain 160 MW in West Java, and Gunung Wilis 50 MW in East Java. The four WKPs are working areas that are now ready to be further developed.
