With roughly 17,000 islands dotted with active and extinct volcanoes, Indonesia has massive geothermal potential for about 27,000 MW of electricity, considered to be the largest in the world. But despite its immense geothermal resources, the country only has 1,196 MW in operation.
The Indonesian government launched crash programs to support the country?s rising energy demands. The first program aimed to build 10,000 MW of coal power plants, but due to growing criticisms about fossil fuels the government made plans to introduce a second crash program in 2008 for renewable energy.
Unlike the first one, the second program utilizes clean energy sources such as hydro, solar and geothermal.The program will invest $19.8 billion to generate 6,867 MW from geothermal power plants.
Indonesia?s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources estimated that there are 253 geothermal locations in Indonesia, of which 2.7 percent has been used for electricity generation. The majority of geothermal locations, accounting for 67.3 percent, are in the stage of preliminary survey, while 30.5 percent are in the geology survey phase and 3.1 percent in the exploration stage.
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