POWER-GEN Asia 2018

Sessions Speakers Exhibitors Products Press Releases Floor Plan Buzz

The Need for Flexible Generation Capacity in Indonesian Power System (Room Garuda 6, 1st Floor)

The Need for Flexible Generation Capacity in Indonesian Power System Indonesia aims to generate 23% of its primary energy consumption from renewables by 2025, up from around 5-6% now. PV accounted for less than 1% of power generation capacity in 2016. By mid-2016 there was over 700 MW in memorandums of understanding as well as commitments by PLN to develop utility-scale solar PV systems in Indonesia. This will increase to 42% in 2040, as a large amount of PV is added in the 2030’s. With wide daily and seasonal fluctuations in demand and high variability (due to intermittency of renewable energy) in supply, the Indonesia grid will need flexible generation capacity. Baseload coal plants lack the flexibility to balance a system with intermittent renewables, unless they are kept on spinning mode. This will result in a very poor average plant load factor (PLF), poor thermal efficiency and high heat rates. This paper will present a practical solution to ensure better integration of RE, while at the same time improving the overall efficiency of the entire system. Installation of fast-response and flexible gas power plants will ensure that baseload plants are operated at optimal PLF with improved efficiency while the flexible plants will help in balancing the variability of RE. Kupang has one of the largest Solar PV plant in Indonesia and plans to build more RE capacity in future. We will show a case study for Kupang Grid that fast-response and flexible gas-powered plants based on internal combustion engines (ICE) when used intermittently and judiciously for RE balancing needs will improve the system efficiency, reliability and overall generation cost.