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| Catch the wind: Villagers erect a windmill on a field of small wind turbines in Kamanggih, Sumba island, East Nusa Tenggara. — AFP |
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Indonesian family of farmers eat cobs of corn outside their hut under the glow
of a light bulb, as the women weave and young men play with mobile phones.
Until two
years ago, most people in Kamanggih village on the island of Sumba had no power
at all. Now 300 homes have access to 24-hour electricity produced by a small
hydroelectric generator in the river nearby.
“We have
been using the river for water our whole lives, but we never knew it could give
us electricity,” Adriana Lawa Djati said, as 1980s American pop songs drifted
from a cassette player inside.
While
Indonesia struggles to fuel its fast-growing economy, Sumba is harnessing power
from the sun, wind, rivers and even pig dung in a bid to go 100% renewable by
2025.
The
ambitious project, called the “Iconic Island“, was started by Dutch development
organisation Hivos and is now part of the national government’s strategy to
almost double renewables in its energy mix over the next 10 years.
Sumba, in
central Indonesia, is an impoverished island of mostly subsistence farmers and
fishermen. Access to power has made a huge difference to people like Djati.
“Since we
started using electricity, so much has changed. The kids can study at night, I
can weave baskets and mats for longer, and sell more at the market” she said.
While only
around 30% of Sumba’s 650,000 people have been hooked up to the power grid,
more than 50% of electricity used now on the island comes from renewable
sources, government data show.
Hivos field
co-ordinator Adrianus Lagur hoped the project would be replicated by other
islands in the same province of East Nusa Tenggara, one of the country’s
poorest.
Indonesia
is one of the region’s most poorly electrified nation, partly because it
sprawls over 17,000 islands of which more than 6,000 are inhabited.
Despite
enjoying economic growth of around 6% annually in recent years, Indonesia is so
short of energy that it rolls out scheduled power cuts that cripple entire
cities and sometimes parts of the capital.
To keep up
with growth, Indonesia is planning to boost its electricity capacity by 60
gigawatts over a 10-year period to 2022. Twenty percent of that is to come from
renewable sources.
“Indonesia
has been a net importer of oil for years, and our oil reserves are limited, so
renewables are an important part of our energy security,” said Mochamad Sofyan,
renewable energy chief of state electricity company PLN.
Hefty
electricity and fuel subsidies have been a serious burden on the state budget.
But small-scale
infrastructure, like mini hydroelectric generators and small wind turbines that
power Sumba are not enough to close the national energy gap, even if they were
built on all Indonesia’s islands.
Massive
hydropower and geothermal projects, which use renewable energy extracted from
underground pockets of heat, are needed to really tackle the nationwide
problem, said Sofyan.
Indonesia,
one of the world’s most seismically active countries, also has the biggest
reserves of geothermal, often near its many volcanoes and tectonic plate
boundaries. It is considered one of the cleanest forms of energy available.
But
geothermal is largely untapped as legislation to open up exploration moves
slowly and the industry is bound in red tape.
Sofyan said
there is also concern that Sumba’s target to be powered 100% by renewable
energy is unrealistic.
“In the
long term, we see Sumba still relying somewhat on diesel generators. It will be
powered predominantly by renewables, but I don’t think it will be able to
switch off the grid,” Sofyan said.
Hivos
admits its goal is ambitious, saying it is “inspirational and political” rather
than technical but the NGO believes the target may be achievable even in the
long term.
Nonetheless
the Sumbanese are reaping the benefits of the green energy sources already
available, which have lifted a considerable financial burden for many due to
reduced costs for wood and oil.
Elisabeth
Hadi Rendi, 60, in the town of Waingapu, has been farming pigs since 1975, but
it was only two years ago when Hivos visited her home that she came to
understand the power of porcine poo. Pigs are commonly kept in Sumba, a
predominantly Christian island in Muslim-majority Indonesia.
Each day
Rendi shovels dung from the pig pens and churns it in a well, after which it is
funnelled to a tank and converted into methane gas. It has saved her household
around six million rupiah (RM1,680) in two years, a significant sum for a
typical Sumbanese family.
“We also
make fertiliser from the waste to use in our garden, where we grow vegetables,”
said Rendi. “We eat the vegetables and feed some to the pigs too, which will
become biogas again, so the energy literally goes round and round.” — AFP
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