A PhD Candidate of UQ SEES Research Group for Industrial Ecology and Circular Economy Discusses Indo

The Energy Exchange Series, held by UQ Energy Initiative since 2011, aims to facilitate constructive, informed and robust debate on energy and climate policy. The most recent Series was held on 26 October 2017 at the Custom House, Brisbane and opened by Professor Aidan Bryne, the UQ Provost and Vice-President. The guest speaker of this series was Ali Al-Saffar, an Energy Analyst - Directorate of Global Energy Economics, at the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris.

Ali Al-Saffar discussed the main findings of the IEA’s Southeast Asia Energy Outlook 2017 and one of them is that coal consumption in the region shows declining trend, except in Indonesia. M. Indra al Irsyad, a member of the UQ Industrial Ecology and Circular Economic Research Group, had been selected as one of the panellists to explain current situation in Indonesia. M. Indra al Irsyad explained that the objective of Indonesian government is to supply electricity of good quality and at an affordable price. Plentiful coal production makes the coal as sensible option for Indonesia’s power plants. However, renewable energy power plant is also being expanded in Indonesia to reduce expensive oil-fired electricity supply. This year the State-owned Electricity Company of Indonesia (PLN) already signed 64 power purchase agreements (PPA) for 600 MW renewables projects while in previous years, PLN only signed 15 PPA a year. He believes that renewable energy future in Indonesia is promising considering that there’s a decreasing trend of renewables technology prices.

The chairman of the panel discussion is Professor Andrew Garnett – Director of UQ Centre for Coal Seam Gas and the other panellist is Ian Macfarlane, the CEO of Queensland Resources Council.