Towards 100% renewable electricity for Indonesia:

the role for solar and pumped hydro storage

Matthew Stocks
Research School of Electrical, Energy
and Materials Engineering
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
matthew.stocks@anu.edu.au
Andrew Blakers
Research School of Electrical, Energy
and Materials Engineering
Australian National University
Canberra, Australia
andrew.blakers@anu.edu.au

Cheng Cheng Bin Lu

Research School of Electrical, Energy Research School of Electrical, Energy
and Materials Engineering and Materials
Australian National University Australian National University
Canberra, Australia Canberra, Australia
Cheng.Cheng1@anu.edu.au bin.lu@anu.edu.au

Abstract—60% of global annual net new capacity comprise
the addition of solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind. Indonesia has
good solar resources by world standards, with low seasonal
variation. There is also some wind energy potential. Solar PV is
likely to be cheaper than new coal generation and can be rapidly
deployed at every scale throughout Indonesia. Balancing an
electricity system with large fractions of variable solar PV and
wind can be managed with established techniques comprising
stronger interconnection over large areas to average out local
weather variations; storage; demand management; and
occasional spillage of renewable electricity. Pumped hydro is by
far the leading method of energy storage. Indonesia has 26,000
good pumped hydro sites with storage capacity of 821,000
Gigawatt-hours (GWh), which is about 1,000 times more than
needed to support a 100% renewable Indonesian electricity
system.
Keywords—photovoltaics, wind energy, pumped hydro energy
storage, 100% renewable energy
system can rapidly transition to large shares of variable
renewables from a system dominated by coal.
If growth in fossil fuel generation is used by counties to
support their energy needs then very serious damage will be
done to Earth’s climate. On the other hand, following a
renewables pathway can decouple carbon emissions from
economic development. Indonesia is in a position to emulate
Australia, China, India and other low-latitude countries and
supply its growing economy with clean renewable energy
rather than energy from coal.
Indonesia has a target for renewables and “new” energy to
contribute 23% of the primary energy mix by 2025
(Government Regulation 79/2014), and its National Energy
Plan (RUEN) has slated 8.3 GW of solar and wind to come
online by 2025 [3,4].

I. INTRODUCTION
Solar photovoltaics, wind and hydroelectricity account for
two thirds of global net generation installations (Fig. 1). Fossil
fuel sources including gas and coal comprising most of the
remainder [1]. China, the European Union, India, USA and
Japan accounted for three quarters of global new renewable
deployment in 2018. Wind and solar PV constitute above 60%
of global net new capacity additions. The dominance of solar
PV and wind is likely to increase in the 2020s due to continued
decline in the cost of solar PV and wind.
Australia is transitioning rapidly towards a grid dominated Fig. 1. Global net new capacity additions 2015-18 [1,5-11]
by renewable energy. Over the three years 2018-20, about 17
Gigawatts (GW) of new wind and solar PV electricity II. THE SUNBELT
generation systems are being completed, most of it in the
Around 75% of the world’s population lives in the regions
National Electricity Market (NEM) which covers the east and
in or near to the tropics (+/- 35° of latitude). This region
south of the country [2]. This 17 GW equates to 200-250
supports most of the world’s emerging economies, with
Watts of new renewable energy per person per year compared
associated fast growth in population, energy demand and
with less than 50 Watts per person per year for the European
emissions. Air conditioning loads for space cooling
Union (EU), Japan, China and the USA (Fig. 2). Australia is
requirements align well with solar availability. There are no
installing renewable energy 4-5 times faster per capita than the
cold winters and heating loads are small. This region has
EU, Japan, China and the USA, and ten times faster than the
ample sunshine and low seasonal variation of both demand
global average. Australia is demonstrating how an electricity
and solar insolation. There is low requirement for (expensive)
seasonal storage.
Support from the Energy Transition Hub (https://www.energy- Australia is experiencing rapid renewable electrification
transition-hub.org/) and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency
(https://arena.gov.au/) is gratefully acknowledged.
via variable solar PV and wind. Sunbelt countries are very

978-1-7281-5692-7/19/$31.00 ©2019 Crown

different from the previous renewable energy growth centres about 240,000 GWh per annum. Thus, solar PV systems with
of Europe or North America or northeast Asia which are a rating of about 160 Gigawatts (GW) are required to meet
distant from the equator. These regions, including Indonesia, Indonesia’s entire electricity consumption. Assuming a panel
can avoid a fossil fuel dominated energy mix and rapidly efficiency of 20% (representing solar PV panel efficiency in
move to renewables, avoiding the lock-in of long term the 2020s), this translates to a combined panel area of 800
greenhouse emissions. This is illustrated in Table 1 which km2. This area of panel represents about 3 m2 per person.
highlights characteristics that influence the uptake of
renewable energy, comparing Sunbelt countries to the Deployment of solar PV in Indonesia can take place on
economies further north. building rooftops, on land, on reservoirs and in protected
coastal seas. Australia, with a population of only 25 million,
Sunbelt The north has installed 9 GW of roof mounted systems to date [12] with
annual installation rates of 1.5 GW [13] in 2018. Replicating
Latitude Low High Australia’s current per capita installations would deliver
95GW of rooftop solar.
Solar resource High Moderate
Solar PV systems mounted on the ground or on water
Seasonality of solar Low High bodies typically have a spacing of 3:1. If half the panels were
mounted on rooftops (consuming no land) then an area of
Access to wind Moderate High about 1,200 km2 of land and water would be required to supply
Heating load Low High
all of Indonesia’s current electricity requirements from solar
PV. This represents about 0.06% of Indonesia’s land surface.
Need for seasonal storage Low High Alternatively, this represents about 5% of Indonesia’s lake
area [14], 1% of Indonesia’s inland seas [15] or 0.2% of the
Pumped hydro site count High High area of seas claimed by Indonesia [15].
Wealth & technology Moderate High Available rooftops, land and water bodies can
accommodate enough solar PV to supply a large multiple of
Current fossil fuel capacity Low High current Indonesian electricity demand.
Table 1. Sunbelt countries have good prospects for bypassing a fossil fuel era. IV. PUMPED HYDRO ENERGY STORAGE
Green, yellow and red cells correspond to favourable, neutral and
unfavourable characteristics respectively for deployment of solar PV and Conventional hydroelectricity has a limited future as an
wind rather than fossil fuels additional energy source due to challenges with resource
availability and concerns regarding interruption of natural
III. INDONESIAN SOLAR RESOURCES river flows. However, pumped hydro energy storage (PHES)
Indonesia has good solar resources, equivalent to those of is a major opportunity. As variable solar PV and wind
India or southern Australia and better than eastern China (Fig. electricity generation rises into the range of 50-100% of total
2). electricity production, large amount of additional storage is
required [16]. PHES and batteries are by far the leading
contenders.
PHES is, by far, the leading energy storage technology
[3,4], representing 97% of global storage power (160 GW)
and more than 99% of stored energy. PHES is a mature off-
the-shelf technology and is much cheaper than alternatives for
large-scale energy storage. solar PV , wind, PHES and high
voltage DC and AC transmission together represent mature
technologies, each with more than 100 GW of global
deployment, that can support 100% renewable electricity at
modest cost [12], allowing large greenhouse gas emissions
reductions.
Batteries are important for short term storage (sub-seconds
up to about an hour), household storage and for electric
vehicles. A utility-scale battery [17] has storage energy of 0.13
GWh and storage power of 0.1 GW. Pumped hydro storage
has orders of magnitude greater scale. The Snowy 2.0 pumped
hydro project [18] capable of 350 GWh of energy storage and
power of 2 GW.
Most existing PHES is associated with hydroelectric
projects on rivers. Vigorous social and environmental
opposition is sometimes encountered for new river-based
Fig. 2. Global (top) and Indonesian (lower) indicative output from solar PV hydroelectric projects. However, PHES systems can be closed
panels [12]. loop and located away from rivers. Since most of the land
Annual energy output of about 1.5 Gigawatt-hours (GWh) surface of Earth is not adjacent to a river, a vastly larger
per Megawatt rating of a solar PV panel can be expected in number of potential sites are available for off-river PHES (Fig.
Indonesia [12]. Current Indonesian electricity consumption is 3) in comparison to river-based PHES.

Fig. 3. Presenzano PHES system showing twin off-river reservoirs. It has a
head of 500 m, power of 1 GW and storage of 6 GWh (Google Earth image)
Off-river PHES (comprises a pair of reservoirs (each a few
hundred hectares), separated by a few kilometres, but at
different altitudes (100-1200 m altitude difference or “head”)
and connected by a pipe or tunnel (Fig. 3). Water is pumped
uphill on sunny/windy days, and energy is recovered by
allowing the stored water to flow back through the turbine.
The round-trip efficiency (after losses) is typically 80%. The
water cycles indefinitely between the two reservoirs, with
occasional top-ups to replace evaporation.
Off-river PHES utilizes completely standard technology.
The significant differences from river-based PHES are that
flood control measures and their associated costs are largely
avoided; and heads are generally better because of far more
choice of sites.
The authors of this work have undertaken a global study
to determine the scale of the resource. We used GIS
techniques to identify 616,000 [19] off-river sites with storage
potential of about 23 million GWh (Fig. 3). Sites range in size
from an energy storage potential of 2GWh up to 150 GWh.
The search covers the area of the earth between the latitude of
60 degrees North and 56 degrees South, covered by the space
shuttle radar topography mission. A pair of reservoirs (upper
and lower) are identified for each sites along with the tunnel
route between the reservoirs.
Fig. 4. Distribution of global pumped hydro sites identified with GIS analysis.
616,000 sites were identified with a combined storage capacity of 23 million
GWh.
In Indonesia, 26,000 good pumped hydro sites were found
with storage capacity of 821,000 Gigawatt-hours (GWh),
which is about 1,000 times more than needed to support a
100% renewable Indonesian electricity system (Fig. 4).
Detailed zoomable maps for all reservoirs are available
(Fig. 5), together with spreadsheets containing data such as the
latitude and longitude, and water and dam wall volumes of the
two reservoirs, as well as the head, slope, energy storage
potential and approximate relative cost (classes A-E) [19]. It
would not be surprising if some sites were rejected based on
local characteries. However, only one in a thousand of the
identified sites are required to support a 100% Indonesian
renewable electricity grid. Developers and approval
authorities can afford to select the best sites.
Fig. 5. Thousands of off-river pumped hydro sites in Indonesia [19].
Background map: [20].
The power capacity of a pumped hydro system can be
selected largely independently of the energy storage. Power
depends on the rate that water can flow which relates to the
cross-sectional area of the water conveyance and the capacity
of the power components (pump/turbine, generator,
transmission). Usually, the power of an off-river PHES
system is selected to exhaust the stored energy in the range of
5-25 hours.
Fig. 6. Visualization of Class A (red dots/ world-class) off-river reservoir pairs
in East Java, Indonesia [19]. The upper and lower reservoirs are coloured light
and dark blue respectively. The energy storage potential is 150 Gigawatt-
hours per pair. Image credit: Data61 hosting and Bing Map background
The water requirements of a renewable electricity system
relying mostly on solar PV, wind, PHES and wide-area
transmission is substantially less than for a corresponding
coal-based system because cooling towers are not needed
[21]. PHES system require water for the initial fill and,
thereafter, replacement of evaporation losses less rainfall.
The environmental impact of off-river pumped hydro can
be relatively small [22]. The reservoirs are much smaller (5-
10 Ha per GWh) than for a typical river-based system; and the
vast number of potential off-river sites means that sensitive
areas can be excluded. The area occupied by a PHES system
is much smaller than the corresponding solar or wind farm that
it supports.
Legacy fossil fuels coupled with demand management can
help to balance an electrical grid with a large proportion of
variable renewable energy (solar PV and wind). However, as
the renewable fraction approaches 100% then substantial
storage is needed. Pumped hydro offers a variety of services
required to maintain the system including inertia, rapid
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS [11] https://solargis.com/maps-and-gis-data/download/world/, Accessed
August 2019
AREMI is supported by ARENA and Data61. Special
[12] https://pv-map.apvi.org.au/analyses
thanks to Mats Henrikson of Data61
(https://www.data61.csiro.au/) for mounting the data on [13] K. Baldwin, A. Blakers and M. Stocks “Australia’s renewable energy
industry is delivering rapid and deeo emissions cuts”
AREMI. Thanks also to Ryan Stocks and David Singleton. https://energy.anu.edu.au/files/Australia%27s%20renewable%20ener
gy%20industry%20is%20delivering%20rapid%20and%20deep%20e
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