Kemiskinan energi merupakan kondisi dimana manusia tidak dapat menikmati layanan energi modern baik untuk keperluan memasak ataupun penerangan. Walaupun Indonesia merupakan negara dengan konsumsi energi per kapita melebihi konsumsi minimum energi modern seharusnya, namun pada kenyataannya, kemiskinan energi masih terjadi di beberapa wilayah Indonesia. IESR melakukan studi literatur dan analisis mengenai kemiskinan energi di Indonesia.

Adapun studi ini menunjukkan bahwa walaupun kebijakan energi di Indonesia telah dibuat untuk mengatasi kemiskinan energi, namun pada praktiknya, kebijakan tersebut tidak dapat mengatasi kemiskinan energi. Studi ini juga menunjukkan bahwa terjadinya kemiskinan energi tidak semata-mata dikarenakan ketidakmampuan ekonomi saja, namun juga karena adanya keterbatasan akses pada energi. Subsidi pun ternyata memainkan peranan yang cukup penting untuk terjadinya kemiskinan energi.

Studi ini juga memberikan rekomendasi mengenai bagaimana kemiskinan energi dapat diatasi. Diantaranya adalah dengan memanfaatkan potensi energi setempat, pembenahan infrastruktur energi, sosialisasi penggunaan layanan energi, pencabutan subsidi energi, dan adanya pemberdayaan ekonomi lokal.

Download PDF

Laporan keempat IPCC menyebutkan bahwa meningkatnya konsentrasi gas rumah kaca di atmosfer disebabkan karena kegiatan manusia yang merupakan ujung dari pola hidup masing-masing. Itu sebabnya, Laporan IPCC menyatakan bahwa perubahan pola hidup manusia dapat berkontribusi signifikan pada produksi penurunan gas rumah kaca. Fakta tersebut menjadi landasan IESR untuk membuat kalkulator jejak karbon, yang digunakan sebagai alat untuk mengetahui jumlah gas rumah kaca (dalam satuan gram CO2-ek) yang dihasilkan oleh masyarakat Indonesia sehari-hari.

Hasil penelitian dengan metode survey ini menunjukkan bahwa total emisi yang dihasilkan oleh masyarakat Indonesia secara individu adalah 7942,744 gram CO2-ek/kap/hari yang melingkupi kegiatan-kegiatan penggunaan barang elektronik, sampah organik yang dihasilkan, penggunaan kertas, penggunaan kendaraan pribadi, dan penggunaan lampu. Hasil survey awal ini menunjukkan bahwa masyarakat Indonesia dapat mengurangi emisi dengan mengurangi jumlah barang elektronik yang digunakan, serta lamanya pemakaian. Survey ini juga menyimpulkan bahwa perubahan gaya hidup perlu dilakukan oleh masyarakat Indonesia, terutama dari segi efisiensi energi dalam lingkungan rumah dan kerja masing-masing.

Download Laporan (PDF)

The Cinta Mekar project is a 120-kiloWatt micro-hydro power plant (MHPP) designed to generate a supply of grid-connected electricity. The project is located in Cinta Mekar village, Subang, West Java, which is about 150 km from the capital city of Jakarta. Cinta Mekar, which consists of four sub-villages, is home to 646 families.

Prior to the start of the project, 102 households were without electricity. Based on the survey carried out by UNESCAP, most villagers are poor rice farmers expecting to benefit from being connected to the main power supply. After over two years of preparations, the plant was completed and launched on April 17, 2004.

Download PDF

The Case for Renewable Energy Projects: Lessons from Indonesia

Access to reliable and affordable energy is a prerequisite for economic development and poverty reduction. In addition, modern energy services contribute to social development by helping to fulfill the basic human needs of nutrition, warmth, and lighting.

In Indonesia, the demand for energy rises as the population grows. Currently, Indonesia relies heavily on fossil fuels to meet its energy demands despite the fact that fossil fuel reserves are limited. Electric power plants are powered by diesel-fueled generators that compound the cost of electricity. There is, however, a huge potential for renewable energy to dominate Indonesia’s energy portfolio. For many of Indonesia’s isolated islands and regions, provision of basic energy needs through off-grid renewable energy resources is an economically viable and environmentally sound option.

The Cinta Mekar Micro-Hydro Power Plant project and the Kulon Progo Improved Cook Stove Project in Indonesia demonstrate the development effectiveness of off-grid renewable energy projects. A best practices study identifies the replicable elements of the two projects.

Cinta Mekar Micro-Hydro Power Plant (MHPP) Project

The micro-hydro project not only provides electricity to the surrounding community, but it also generates income for the Cinta Mekar village as villagers sell power to the grid. The village has used the revenue to build a health care clinic, provide scholarships for education, supply villagers with electrical access, and offer seed capital for other income-generating activities. The project is considered a tremendous success by all stakeholders as it is the first community-based MHPP that relies on a public-private partnership.

A key success factor for this project was an emphasis on community involvement in the planning, development, and implementation stages. While similar projects often view the community solely as the beneficiary, Cinta Mekar involved the community as a partial owner and project manager, allowing the villagers to develop and oversee the project.

Kulon Progo Improved Cook Stove (ICS) Project

Coconut sugar is a primary commodity of Kulon Progo and its production makes a significant contribution to the local economy. To harvest coconut sugar, the villagers have traditionally heated liquid sapped from coconut’s young flowers for several hours on a traditional three-hole stove fueled by firewood. This technique produces harmful levels of indoor air pollution. Women in this region spend a majority of their time harvesting coconut sugar and often suffer from acute respiration infection due to the excess smoke produced by the firewood. Children are also exposed to the pollution and thus at high-risk for developing respiratory illness.

The Improved Cook Stove project was initiated by Yayasan Dian Desa, a Jakarta-based NGO that focuses on community development and improving biomass utilization. Since installing the ICSs, the villagers have seen positive changes in their quality of life. The excessive smoke that caused illness has been reduced considerably and cooking time is shorter, which allows villagers to produce coconut sugar more efficiently and earn higher incomes. The use of fuel-wood has been cut by 50 percent, which means women spend less time collecting wood and more time on other productive, income-earning activities.

Developing a Best Practices Model for Renewable Energy Projects

Development experts examined these two Indonesian projects to identify a best practices model for future renewable energy projects. Research led to the conclusion that renewable energy development requires enabling, enforceable and resourced policies and regulations at the national and local levels. Support strategies such as fiscal incentives, feed in-tariffs, soft-loans, grants and technical assistance are also important for developing renewable energy.

The study found that for energy services to be readily and widely accessible, affordable and clean, the following elements of good governance and technical and project management must be considered:

• Initiation: Non-governmental organizations usually play this role. They bring the idea to the community. NGOs help communities to understand the benefits of a project, promote cooperation, and take part in crafting the initial agreement.
• Institutional development and community participation: Locally-based institutions must be created to ensure sustainability and community ownership of the project. Local participation from the early stages of a project is of utmost importance. The local community must be involved in the design, planning, and management of the project.
• Financing: Project financing, including soft loans, grants and community counterpart, must be available. It is important to solicit a contribution from the direct beneficiary of the project (e.g. the local community). This will help to foster a sense of project ownership in the community. If the local community cannot cover the cost, external funding from donor agencies must be available. An option for financial cooperation such as a public-private-partnership should be considered depending upon the nature of the project. Soft loans are an effective tool for villagers. Since this type of loan stresses the importance of repayment, the villagers encourage users to pay and work to collect payments on time.
• Direct financial benefit for the local community: Renewable energy investments should help community organizations reduce, if not eliminate, their dependence on external sources of funding. Lesser reliance on loans can lead towards greater local ownership of these projects.

Development institutions such as the World Bank will hopefully draw lessons from this research as they draft its new Energy Strategy. These projects are a testament to the development effectiveness of off-grid renewable energy projects in improving peoples’ lives, as compared with extractive and large hydro-power projects.

This paper is part of civil society effort to advocate the upcoming World Bank energy strategy that anticipated being release in 2011. Research for this paper is made possible by the support of Bank Information Center (BIC) and HIVOS.

Download PDF

Abstract

In many urban areas in Indonesia, cities development and urbanization enhances the impact of climate related hazards. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, is subject to flood every year. Due to rainfall intensity and rain duration that have increased, the flood is unavoidable in Jakarta. In 2007, all river basin communities in Jakarta were suffered from this climate related disaster events. Moreover, Jakarta is considered the most vulnerable city to climate change in South East Asia Region.

This research aims to have a better understanding about climate change risks and adaptation in urban areas in Indonesia. Therefore, this research projects changes in climate variables (rainfall, temperature), water availability and sea level rise in Java Island and Jakarta; and identifies the climate related hazards in urban coastal area in Jakarta, as well as the impacts, the local adaptation and its challenges.

This research combines top down and bottom up approaches. Top down approach represented by the climate modeling method using the Meteorological  Research Institute (MRI) model of Japan that are scenario A1B, A2, and B1 which will be used to project the future climate risks of Java Island and DKI Jakarta province; meanwhile the bottom up approach is done through field research using Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) concepts and tools to look at the current climate risks and present adaptation strategies including the challenges at urban coastal community, called Kelurahan Kamal Muara. Findings from these two approaches will be used for triangulation which will improve the validity and reliability of the results.

The study found that based on the analysis of three scenarios of MRI, highest temperature increase in Jakarta since year 2010 until 2100 is in January that shown by the A2 scenario that is 3.67 ^o C. Whereas the smallest increase from year 2010 to year 2100 is shown by the B1 scenario by 2.09 ^oC. In Java island, the highest temperature rise is in January that indicated by the scenario A2 and the lowest increase shown by the B1 scenario. Meanwhile for rainfall projection, the result shows that in 2010, a strange finding pattern is shown by the A2 scenario. The pattern should indicate a monsoonal wet season in the period of dry seasons DJF and JJA period, but the JJA period is dry season. This condition lasted only to 2010 in Java Island; while at the DKI Jakarta will happen again later in 2100. Based on A2 scenario, the water surplus and storage volume projection will decrease in 2050 and then increase in 2100. For sea level rise, it is projected that will inundate most far until the area of Central Jakarta and will cause a very large socioeconomic impacts.

The climate related hazards that frequently occured in Kamal Muara are sea level rise, sea water flood or high tidal wave, and climate uncertainty. Climate change impacts were observed and reported by the community such as  sea water flood in 2008 with strong magnitude that destroyed the dike in the border area and indirect impact on health of diarrheal issue, environmental degradation, and also an outbreak 22 dengue cases in 2008. Factors that may enhance the vulnerability level to climate change is lack of drainage system, lack of clean water, poor hygiene, land and space issues, and unstable economy household. To deal with the impacts, some local efforts have been implemented through adjusted houses (either Bugis type, two stories, levelled), repairing secondary livelihood such as become motorcycle taxi driver or become sea shell labour, and clean houses aftermath of sea water flood. However, many challenges that will be faced in developing their adaptation to climate change are habit and attitude change, find and prepare secondary livelihood, lack of drinking water availability, lack financial resources and also coordination.