Labuan Bajo fishing village, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia (source: Tiket2.com / flickr, Creative Commons)
Pertamina Geothermal Energy (PGE) has announced their participation in the auction for two geothermal sites in Indonesia that the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) have made available for tender. These are the Way Ratai and Nage geothermal working areas (WKP) that we had reported on before the end of 2022.
The announcement was made by Harris Yahya, Director of Geothermal at the Directorate General of New, Renewable Energy and Energy Conservation (EBTKE) at the MEMR.
The Way Ratai WKP is straddles the boundaries of the Pesawaran Regency, Tanggamus Regency, South Lampung Regency, and Bandar Lampung city in Sumatra. It has an area of 70,710 hectares and a potential reserve of 100 MWe, although the plan for the WKP is only to build a power plant with 55 MWe capacity.
The Nage WKP is located in Ngada Regency in East Nusa Tenggara. Exploratory drilling in Nage has been undertaken by the Indonesian Government as part of a program to de-risk geothermal sites. Based on the tests done on two slim hole wells, the estimated potential in the Nage WKP is 46 MWe. The development plant in Nage is for a 20 MWe power plant.
It has been several years since PGE last participated in a WKP auction. Incidentally, this announcement comes after the initial public offering (IPO) of up to USD 651 million in value of shares of PGE.
“PGE is the first geothermal company in Indonesia to go public. Hopefully, this news can give a positive signal to geothermal investors in Indonesia. [PGE] must move quickly and add installed capacity. The results of this (IPO) must be utilized immediately. From the 672 MWe figure, it must increase to 1200 MWe,” commented Dadan Kusdiana, the Director General of EBTKE.
