JAKARTA – Indonesia will temporarily relax rules that have slowed development of solar energy in the coal-dependent country, lifting one of the many regulatory and legal roadblocks to the archipelago’s pledge toThe government will remove the requirement that solar projects use a majority of domestically produced materials until 2025, when Indonesia’s first solar panel factory is expected to begin production.
Bloomberg reviewed a copy of the plan, which was written by the JETP Secretariat, the coordinating body for stakeholders hosted in Indonesia’s Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and supported by the Asian Development Bank. Dr Dadan Kusdiana, the energy ministry’s secretary-general, confirmed that the government is in discussions to relax the rules for solar power projects.
For Indonesia’s part, changing the solar requirements may be the easiest of the legal reforms that the plan calls for. The country currently generates less solar power than Norway, and much of what it does produce is shipped to neighbouring Singapore. The government would like to increase its solar power capacity fivefold in the next five years, according to the investment plan, but will need nearly US$2.4 billion to do so.