Japan Helps Indonesia on Energy Transition

TheIndonesia.co - The governments of Indonesia and Japan signed a Memorandum of Cooperation (MoC) on energy transition aimed at facilitating efforts to materialize Indonesia's energy transition program.

The MoC was inked by Indonesian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Hagiuda Koichi.

"Thank you for the initiative to implement cooperation and sign the MoC. This is, of course, an extraordinary endeavor from the Japanese side," Tasrif noted after signing the MoC in Jakarta on Monday, January 10, 2022.

The bilateral cooperation will help facilitate a technology transfer process in order to accelerate the energy transition process.

"Indonesia and Japan can jointly develop carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technology by utilizing natural resources in Indonesia," he noted as reported by Antara.

Indonesia's energy transition program needs the support of international partners in order to achieve the nation's target to become carbon neutral by 2060, he affirmed.

Hence, the Indonesian government invites investors to participate in order to support the program.

In return, the government offers facilities to ease doing business in the country and prepares a Draft Regulation of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources related to new and renewable energy tariffs, he remarked.

Meanwhile, Minister Koichi welcomed the cooperation to help accelerate the energy transition process in Indonesia.

"Japan wants to help materialize this target through the framework of the Asia Energy Transition Initiative," the Japanese minister noted.

The cooperation, agreed in the MoC, encompasses preparations for a roadmap for the energy transition to clean emissions based on their respective national targets; the development and deployment of technologies that contribute to a realistic energy transition, including hydrogen, ammonia fuel, carbon recycling, and CCS/CCUS; support efforts in multilateral forums to accelerate technological cooperation that contributes to a realistic energy transition; and support for policy and human resource development as well as knowledge sharing on energy transitions and the applied technologies.

At the technical level, a joint study between Mitsubishi Indonesia representative and the Research and Development Center for Oil and Gas (Lemigas) is currently underway on co-combustion of ammonia fuel at a Steam Power Plant (PLTU).

The study, scheduled to be completed in January 2022, aims to assess the technical and economic feasibility of using ammonia to partially substitute coal in order to maintain the operation of the power plant.