Strategy in Reducing the Pace of the Greenhouse Gas Emission from the Electricity Sector in Southeast Sulawesi

Abstract

Climate change in Indonesia is receiving a lot of concern as the nation is the top ten world largest emitter of the greenhouse gases. To relieve the concern, Indonesia had proposed to cut the gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020 from business-as-usual (BAU) levels and proposed a 41 percent emission reduction below BAU target conditional to international support for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs). This study deals with the strategy in reducing the acceleration of the greenhouse gas emission from the power sector in Southeast Sulawesi, a developing province in Indonesia with its high electricity demand in recent years. It calculates of the annual greenhouse emission from the electricity generation mix in this province, using the projected annual electricity generation and projected power plants installed under the power supply business plan (RPUTL) of the state electricity company (PLN Indonesia) and the lifecycle carbon dioxide emission equivalent. Some scenarios are proposed, by varying the power generation mix in the case of inclusion and exclusion the projected clean renewable powers in the year of 2020 and 2022. The result shows that in 2020, by the inclusion of the projected clean renewable powers in the power generation mix (around 5 percent), it can reduce the annual greenhouse gas emission almost 6 percent. In 2022, by maintaining the amount of the power generation from fossil sources as those in 2020 and maximizing the use of the clean powers in the electricity generation mix (around 20 percent), under the power provision plan, it can reduce the emission by 26 percent.