By Rikordias Siahaan
Amid strong push to increase renewable energy in Indonesia, French-based power developer HDF Energy plans to develop the country’s first renewable-hydrogen combined power plant in 2024 in East Nusa Tenggara Province.
"HDF Energy is dedicated to the hydrogen power project and we aim to build our combined power plant of renewable and hydrogen in East Nusa Tenggara over the next couple of years" Mathieu Geze, Vice President of Asia at HDF Energy said in a recent interview with Petromindo.com.
Geze said that the company is currently in talks with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and the state-owned electricity firm PT PLN regarding the required capacity of the proposed power plant, adding that the project will be developed under the independent power producer (IPP) scheme.
"We will develop the project based on grids’ needs, which include decreasing the local cost of generation and enhancing grid stability. Technically the minimum hydrogen size we can do is 1 MW but it can be as large as 10 MW or 100 MW actually," Geze further explained.
Read also: HDF Energy plans to develop hydrogen hybrid power plant
HDF Energy plans to develop a power plant called Renewstable, a technology that combines Solar PV and or wind power to generate electricity during the day, and some portion of the electricity then stored in battery and the rest will be used to produce hydrogen by electrolysis. During the night, battery and the hydrogen (by fuel cells) will work simultaneously to produce electricity.
Geze also explained that the project is already bankable and can help to lower local cost of power generation (better known under the Bahasa acronym of BPP). "Even though Renewstable project uses renewable energy, it can deliver a firm, stable and dispatchable power to the grid with no intermittency risk to PLN, thanks to the hydrogen and battery components. It can address challenges in Eastern Indonesia that heavily rely on diesel power generation and assist the government in decarbonizing power sector. Also, this project is already bankable by financiers and can help bring down local BPP," Geze further said.
Positive feedbacks on HDF’s attempt to introduce hydrogen to power through Renewstable was also explained by the Director Of Planning and Development Of National Priority Infrastructure, BAPPENAS, Dr. Ir. Rachmat Mardiana, MA, “Renewstable Power Plant that combines solar PV power plant, battery and hydrogen introduced by HDF Energy could be an alternative for supplying energy from renewable sources in Indonesia, particularly in Eastern Indonesia where diesel power plant serves as the main source of energy. It is in line with the government program to develop the Eastern Part of Indonesia. Renewstable could assist the region in reducing diesel consumption, GHG emissions as well as providing stable electricity from renewable sources. We are also interested to see the potentials of hydrogen use in other sectors, such as maritime and industry”.
In addition, HIVOS and some development partners, including UK FCDO Mentari Project, GIZ Explore and UNDP MTRE3 accompany HDF’s first step in East Nusa Tenggara through various technical assistances.
HDF Energy is developing a pipeline of projects of hundreds of million-dollar CAPEX in Indonesia. The company promised to demonstrate that green hydrogen projects can be implemented at commercial scale from today in Indonesia. With its recent successful IPO, HDF Energy is ready to accelerate its project development in Indonesia.
Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak
