New rules to boost Indonesian net metered rooftop PV

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Indonesia‘s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) has enacted the law MEMR 26/2021 that improves the net metering legislation for rooftop PV.

This is the third time the Indonesian government has amended the rules since they came into force in 2018, as they have so far failed to deliver the expected growth volume in terms of new PV installations.

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“The new regulation has passed the bureau of law, however, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) has yet to announce this officially,” Marlistya Citraningrum, the program manager for sustainable energy access at the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR), told pv magazine. “There is new presidential regulation issued in August 2021 stating that any ministerial regulations concerning ‘national strategic issue' must be reviewed and given a go by the president himself.” According to her, rooftop solar is one of the top priorities for Indonesian president, Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, whose national strategic programs are targeting 3.6 GW of capacity by 2024.

“We are certainly glad that the contents are aligned with our recommendations such as better net-metering tariff, a longer reset period, expansion to non-PLN business area, and more efficient application process,” Citraningrum said, adding, “We also expect that better regulation will spur growth in diverse sectors, and more work on strengthening the ecosystem is needed such as better access to attractive financing, product quality, and boosting domestic solar industries.”
The new net metering rules have increased the net metering factor from 0.65 to 100, which means that PV system owners will now be given credits for the surplus power they inject into the grid at the same tariff they pay for buying electricity from the network. Furthermore, the time frame to accumulate these credits has been increased from three to six months.
The net metering rules were amended for the first time in October 2019 and a second time in December. At the end of last year, there was around just 17 MW of installed PV capacity under the scheme.
According to recent data published by IESR based on the solar resource mapping of NREL Re Explore, Indonesia has the technical potential to deploy up to 655 GWp of cumulative rooftop PV capacity. The nation’s PV capacity stood at around 172 MW at the end of last year, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency. Just 17 MW of solar power was deployed in the country in 2020.

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