(Cirata) Indonesia on Thursday inaugurated Southeast Asia’s largest floating solar farm, costing more than $100 million, as the archipelago seeks to further expand its renewable energy production weak.
The 192-megawatt Cirata floating solar farm is built on a 200-hectare artificial lake in the west of the Big Island of Java, about 130 kilometers from the capital Jakarta.
“Today is a historic day, because our great dream of building a large-scale renewable energy plant is finally realized,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said at the inauguration.
“We managed to build the largest floating solar farm in Southeast Asia and the third largest in the world,” he added.
The project, a collaboration between the Indonesian National Electricity Corporation (PLN) and Abu Dhabi-based renewable energy company Masdar, took three years of work for an investment of $108.7 million.
Financed by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, Société Générale and Standard Chartered, the solar park includes 340,000 solar panels and is expected to cover the electricity needs of 50,000 homes, PLN said.
While the Indonesian government aims to reach zero emissions by 2060, solar and wind each currently represent less than 1% of the country’s energy mix.
Southeast Asia’s largest economy still relies heavily on fossil fuels, mainly coal, to generate electricity.
Faced with air pollution problems, Indonesia has pledged not to build new coal-fired power plants from 2023. But despite protests from environmental activists, the country continues to build the plants already planned.
Indonesia is also trying to position itself as a key player in the electric vehicle market as the world’s leading producer of nickel, a metal essential for battery manufacturing. But some industrial parks that house energy-intensive nickel smelters are powered by coal.
