Indonesia's government plans to build hydroelectric plants at 239 dams owned by the Public Works Ministry, as part of its renewable energy initiative.
“We will rent the dams to developers so they will only be responsible for building the power generators, which would reduce investment costs greatly,” said Ridha Mulyana, the director general for new and renewable energy at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry.
The rental fee will be determined by the Finance Ministry.
The director general also said that the government has yet to set a feed-in-tariff — the rate set by the government at which state utility Perusahaan Listrik Negara buys electricity from private power producers — under the plan.
Ridha said that the government is yet to determine whether such projects will be assigned to state enterprises or given to private investors.
This year alone, as part of the project, the government plans to kick-start the construction of 4 hydropower plants in East Java, said Ridha. The combined capacity of these four new plants is forecast to reach as much as 146.52 megawatts.
Private investors have also expressed interest in building similar facilities in 5 locations, which would have total power capacity at around 16.94 megawatts, according to Ridha.
As of 2013, hydroelectricity accounted for 8.8% of the country's installed capacity of 46,428 megawatts, according to the Energy Ministry.