Indonesia has 18.2 MW of solar under net metering

Indonesia launched a net metering scheme for solar arrays in December 2018. The provisions have been updated several times over the past two years, but they’ve ultimately failed to support higher deployment.

According to the government, the country currently has 18.2 MW of PV systems under net metering, with 7.7 MW of the total coming from 16 industrial power consumers. Another 5.1 MW comes from residential consumers, while 1.8 MW is run by small-sized businesses. The remaining capacity is owned by public entities.

“The cost of using the rooftop PV systems has decreased over time, while the price of electricity from solar energy has touched $0.0132/kWh,” the government said. “However, its development has also been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.”

In order to increase volumes and spur development, the government has decided this year to improve the provisions once again with MEMR Regulation No. 4 of 2020. It aims to push more industrial consumers to deploy solar PV to reduce their energy bills. The Indonesian government introduced other improvements to the net metering regime in October 2019.

According to recent data from the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), Indonesia has the potential to deploy up to 655 GWp of rooftop PV capacity. But the nation’s PV capacity stood at just 198 MW at the end of last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Developers installed about 136 MW across the archipelago in 2019.

The Indonesian government wants the country to deploy 6.5 GW of solar by 2025 and 45 GW by 2050.