Expanding Geothermal Power In Indonesia  

The Jakarta Post has an article on a government initiative to expand geothermal power generation in Indonesia - Over 5,000 MW of geothermal power in 2014 – Can we make it?.

Our law on energy has identified renewable energy as one of the country’s primary energy resources. We have a mandate to use renewable both for electricity generation, on-grid and off-grid, and as a transport fuel.

Expressed in a presidential decree, renewable would provide approximately 17 percent of energy used by 2025, a much larger share than the current 4.5 percent.

The second electricity crash program, recently announced by government, includes recourse to renewable resources to be developed in the period from 2009 to 2014. About 60 percent of this new capacity is to be from renewable sources, i.e., 48 percent (5,000 MW) from geothermal and 12 percent from Hydro resources.

With 5,000 MW of geothermal, we will conservatively reduce annually 82 million tons CO2 equivalent in emissions. The economic cost of not meeting this target is high. Assuming a plant load factor of 90 percent, and a cost for coal of US$55 per ton, it represents an economic gain of US$740 million annually, being the value of the 13.5 million tons of coal saved.

A substantial gain can also be achieved from carbon credits from the significant amount of CO2 that would be saved. ...

Moreover, investment costs of geothermal power plant are in general 2 to 3 times higher than that of a comparable fossil fuel plant. But the running costs are much less, because no purchases of coal, oil or gas are needed.

Once the geothermal plant is operational, the costs are largely that of the repayment and interest cost of the finance, (as well as maintenance and running costs).