Is Renewable Energy Helping Us?

As the title said, is renewable energy can help us? Or it’s just a corporate way to make more money? Or maybe it’s just a political strategy?

From what we heard, there so many good reasons for using renewable energy, from the environmental aspect and economic aspect. But there are some negative things come with it too. And for this, let me specify this discussion to the most favorite renewable energy, Solar Energy.

For now, renewable energy can be expensive. Certain solar cells require materials that are expensive and rare in nature. This is especially true for thin-film solar cells that are based on either cadmium telluride (CdTe) or copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS). Not only that, much renewable energy is intermittent and unpredictable energy sources like solar energy. The sun doesn’t shine at night and so solar panels don’t generate power at night. Even in the morning, the sun shines with different intensity and different times also cloud cover can have a significant effect on the amount of energy produced by solar panels. To handle that, Energy storage is needed. Energy storage systems such as the Tesla Powerwall home solar battery will help smoothen out demand and load, making solar power more stable, but these technologies are still expensive by now.

But still, even if the sunshine brightly, solar panels are not as efficient as expected. Like solartechonline.com said, most solar panels lose about half a percent in efficiency per year, which causes companies to have a limit on guarantees. Currently, most solar panels are guaranteed to last for a period of 20 to 30 years. Don’t forget solar panels often contain lead, cadmium, and other toxic chemicals that cannot be removed without breaking apart the entire panel, which is time is needed to get the best way to recycle them when expired.

California has targeted to become 100% renewable energy for the states by 2045. Which makes the transition from natural gas into renewable energy. 34.5% California electricity was provided by renewable energy, 51% of that being from solar energy. Even if that sounds amazing, the problem comes at 05:00 PM, when California’s population was about to leave work and arriving home to turn on almost every electric device they have. Which result in a peak power demand at 08:30 PM, four and a half hours after solar supply peaked. So to deal with this demand, California begins to ramp up its natural gas power station and also imported a significant amount of energy from other states.

To fix this, California trying to replace natural gas power state with batteries that can store excess solar electricity. But it would need so much battery storage to replace it. To can storage energy demand in California, 11,200 MWh of energy storage is required. While Tesla 129 MWh battery storage facility for Hornsdale firm in Australia come with a price tag of 56 million dollars. That would be expected the total cost for battery storage California needed is 4.86 billion dollars. But compared to the Diablo Canyon Nuclear power plant which costs 13.8 billion dollars it would be cheaper. However, the batteries didn’t generate their energy, so that’s mean there some cohosts or renewable energy systems like solar panels needed to.

Because there still no much battery storage California have. On 7 May 2019, 8,359 MWh was curtailed. However, on 15 May 2019, just 193 MWh was curtailed. Even in summer, renewable resources are highly variable and unreliable. This leaves California vulnerable if they do not have alternative energy sources like natural gas or nuclear to pick up the slack.

For more information, you should watch his video.

And for more, you can see this well made Ted-Ed video about how solar panels work (2016):

Meanwhile in Indonesia, KEN (Kebijakan Energi Nasional) or National Energy Policy of Indonesia, targeted renewable energy development in Indonesia increased from 5% in 2015 to 23% in 2025. This target indicates the capacity to generate electricity from renewable energy by 45 gigawatts.

Many sources like iesr.or.id, mongabay.co.id, neraca.co.id, and many more said, Indonesia has a big potential in the scope of solar photovoltaic energy. Even Andhika Prastawa as Chairman of AESI (Asosiasi Energi Surya Indonesia) said, Indonesia can generate an average 1.350 kWh/kWp per year from solar energy, while Europe only can generate an average 900 kWh/kWp per year. This happens because Indonesia located on the equator and seasonal variations are so low that electricity production tends to be stable every year.

Indonesian government even supporting the use of the solar photovoltaic energy with a movement named GNSSA (Gerakan Sejuta Surya Atap) on 13 September 2017.

Which promoting and popularize the use of the solar panel in public facilities, housing, office buildings, government buildings, industrial complexes, and commercial buildings. With this, it is expected that the development of solar energy will reach a capacity of 1 GigaWatt before 2020.

Even from this movement, a significant increase in the use of solar panels in Indonesia.

But still, this is not as easy as it sounds.

While it’s true Indonesian Government trying to support renewable energy development. In another way, they make this difficult and complicated. As written by cnbcindonesia.com, there’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministerial Regulation №.50/2017 on renewable energy for electricity which is causes uncertainty in the cost of electricity purchases for industry players, and Energy and Mineral Resources Ministerial Regulation №.49/2018 which has the potential to inhibit the adoption of rooftop solar usage by domestic, commercial, and industrial customers. Also Industry Ministerial Regulation №.4/2017 and №.5/2017 which discusses the Domestic Content Level where each renewable energy system sold in Indonesia must have a local component content of 60%, where domestic products have not reached that number now.

Not only that, There still not much complete information about rooftop solar electricity technology. People are still reluctant to install solar panels until they can get credible provider information, financing schemes in the form of fixed installments with low-interest rates, rooftop solar electricity system packages that are guaranteed and have after-sales service, as well as fiscal incentives.

Because of that, till January 2019, PLN noted that only 609 people were using rooftop solar grid-connected (on-grid) while they were expected to reach one million, but the growth is decreasing afterward.

So, why we need this? If this was so complicated and unpredictable.

As Andy N. Sommeng, then-director general of electricity at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry of Indonesia. Quoted from thejakartapost.com, He said, “My, view is that our current electricity system is not ready to handle the technical aspects [of renewable energy],”. “One example is the photovoltaic power plant, which needs to be complemented by other energy sources when the sun goes down.” he continued.

While acknowledging that future energy demand would be for renewable sources, Andy believed that shifting directly to clean energy power plants would only widen Indonesia’s current account deficit due to higher imports of renewable energy facilities or machinery.

“We are not lagging in [renewable energy development]. We have to consider the supply and demand [of electricity]. Renewable energy is good, but what’s the point if it does not bring added value to our country and instead forces our country to consume more [imported goods]?” he said.

As I know, he wasn’t wrong. But somehow, Indonesia still tries to push this renewable energy thing even further. But why? Why don’t we just for California or Germany or another developed county to become 100% renewable energy country first and then imitate them? This is not like the Space race, right?

From some clue, this the answer. Other than environmental reasons, there are expectations of the threat of a national energy crisis. In Indonesia, it is predicted that there are 9 billion barrels of oil reserves, with an average production rate of 0.5 billion barrels per year. That may be a big number, but that number is predicted to run out within eighteen years from now (2019). This crisis is further worse with coal exploitation in Indonesia.

Because of that, efficient and environmentally friendly renewable energy is the best way to go in the eyes of the government. Even it’s not a cheap solution by now, but it is expected to be a more economical alternative in the long run.

Also, it’s hoped to make renewable energy a driving force of the nation’s economy by helping investment gain from the development of renewable energy in Indonesia and of course open up employment opportunities for the community like installing and maintaining renewable energy systems.

So, how about you? Did you think renewable energy real us? Or it just such a waste of time and resources? It’s up to you. Because in my opinion for now, in the scope of energy, renewable energy still needs more time to can be said helping us. Then from the scope of the environment, it feels like doubting because even if renewable energy almost didn’t give any emission when generating energy, it still quite many emissions on manufacture and installation. But in the scope of the economy, open up employment opportunities is quite helpful.

But, we don’t know what would happen in the future. Maybe someday, we could get some way to make renewable energy more efficient, environment-friendly, economic, and of course more worth it.

So if possible, let’s try to support GNSSA and another movement for better renewable energy in the future. Not only in Indonesia, but all over the world.

Do the best and Let’s try it.