Pertamina Wishes To Be A World Class Player To Generate Geothermal-Based Electricity

November 10, 2022 - Pertamina (Persero) wishes to become a world-class player in generating green electricity based on geothermal energy by pursuing various technological innovations to increase geothermal utilization.

"We have a goal to become a world-class player for geothermal. There is an opportunity because only less than ten percent of Indonesia's total potential is utilized," said Senior Vice President of Research Technology and Innovation of Pertamina, Oki Muraza, in a discussion at the COP-27 Indonesian Pavilion, Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, on Tuesday, October 8, 2022.

Indonesia has nearly 24 GW of geothermal potential, while less than 10 percent of this potential has been utilized. Therefore, there is still a great opportunity to increase geothermal utilization capacity in generating green electricity.

In addition to increasing the renewable energy mix in Indonesia's national electrical energy proportion, efforts to increase geothermal-based electricity capacity support Indonesia's target of achieving net zero emissions by 2060.

Pertamina's research and development of technological innovations for geothermal utilization cover exploration, development, production-operation, and digitization fields.

Currently, Pertamina is developing an improved technology in the exploration field, which can provide a comprehensive geoscience study and develop new methods that are possible to be applied in the geothermal industry.

"This is something that has been done for years. Thus, technologically we master it starting from exploration, development, production, drilling, and so on," said Oki.

Pertamina will also increase its geothermal capacity from 672 MW in 2020 to 1,128 MW in 2026.

Pertamina strives to have the best operational excellence in the upstream sector, integration in developing new areas, and expanding the value chain of products from geothermal energy. For instance, green energy products of green methanol, green hydrogen, nano-silica, green liquid CO2, carbon credit, and supporting the green industry clusters development in the country.

"We hope to accelerate new areas' development, where currently the development can be utilized not only for electricity, but we are starting to think about possible locations to be developed for green hydrogen," he said.

Oki said Pertamina opened up opportunities for cooperation with players in the geothermal field in Indonesia and Energy Efficiency to implement the technological solutions developed by his party. Therefore, they can develop more geothermal power plants and other products from geothermal energy and optimize geothermal potential utilization in Indonesia.**