Nadhilah Reyseliani earned the 67th Doctorate from the Department of Chemical Engineering and the 516th from the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia, in a Doctoral Promotion Session, held at the Smart Meeting Room of the FTUI Dean’s Building, UI Depok Campus, Thursday (21/7/23). Nadhilah graduated with a “Cumlaude” graduation with GPA of 4.0.
Nadhilah presented her dissertation entitled “Planning for Decarbonization of Electricity Systems in Island Countries and Coal Producers” in front of the chairman of the session, promoter team, examination team, and guests who attended. In her presentation, the student who successfully participated in the visiting scholar program collaboration between UI and UC Berkeley explained that the research was motivated by Indonesia’s commitment to making efforts to decarbonize the energy system by the ratification of the Paris Agreement.
Nadhilah explained that renewable energy technology, specifically solar and wind, is expected to be a solution for decarbonization in the electricity sector. However, the fluctuating nature of their supply means that there is a need for flexibility in the electricity system. Other challenges faced by Indonesia as a coal producer and archipelagic country are the socio-economic impacts of coal plant phase-out planning and the mismatch of demand centre location and energy potential. Therefore, this study will review the decarbonization of Indonesia’s electricity system.
“When referring to existing studies, there are no studies based on energy system models that can build long-term electricity system decarbonization planning in analyzing operational systems in detail and simultaneously against capacity development planning and capturing aspects of system flexibility provider options for case studies of archipelagic countries, and fossil or coal producing countries. For this reason, the purpose of this research is to obtain Indonesian electricity system planning that considers the option of providing system flexibility when renewable energy penetration is high to achieve the Paris Agreement target based on an optimization model,” said Nadhilah.
Nadhilah further explained that this decarbonization planning study will use VEDA-TIMES which considers operational aspects, simultaneously, with high time resolution. Several scenarios are reviewed in this study, including the electricity system based on the lowest cost (BAU), current policy (CP), high RE penetration (100% RE), and achievement of the Paris Agreement carbon allowance (PA).
The study results show that BAU will remain dominated by coal generation in the future. To achieve the extreme scenario of 100% RE, utility-scale nuclear and solar plants at large capacities are required with significant consequent increases in investment and COGS. When the Paris Agreement carbon rationing approach is used, the role of decarbonization is not only limited to renewable energy technologies and batteries but also CCS in the form of IGCC-CCS and BECCS. This leads to a 50% increase in investment compared to BAU and CP and maintains the BPP at the same level as the current BPP.
If the coal plant phase-out policy stipulated the need for CO storage, it would decrease by 71% without a significant increase in investment costs and BPP. However, a loss of 398-475 billion USD due to unexploited reserves and 758-799 billion USD, due to the cumulative loss of the upstream coal business as a whole must be borne if inter-island integration is considered, then renewable energy penetration will increase up to 3 times as renewable energy potential from Sumatra, Kalimantan, and NT can be delivered to the centre of electricity demand, namely Java. As a result, there is an equalization of investment in regions other than Java.
Dean of FTUI, Prof. Dr. Heri Hermansyah, S.T., M.Eng., Ph.D., said “The planning for decarbonization of the electricity system through renewable energy is expected to be long-term for Indonesia. This also supports the equitable distribution of renewable energy development potential throughout Indonesia. It is hoped that in the future the development of studies and planning models will continue so that the impact can be felt superior to all Indonesian people.”
The Doctoral Promotion Session was led by the Chairman of the Session, Prof. Dr. Heri Hermansyah, S.T., M.Eng., IPU., Promoter, Prof. Dr. Ir. Widodo Wahyu Purwanto, DEA., Co-Promoter, Prof. Dr. Akhmad Hadiyatno, S.T., M.B.T., Examiner Team, Prof. Dr. Eng. Mr. Deendarlianto, S.T., M.Eng., Kamia Handayani, S.T., M.Si., Ph.D., Prof. Dr. Ir. Asep Handaya Saputra, M.Eng., Prof. dr. Ir. Principal Dijan Agung, M.Si., and Ir. Abdul Wahid, M.T., Ph.D..
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Public Communication Bureau
Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Indonesia