Director of Health, Safety, and Environment of PT Trimegah Bangun Persada Tbk (Harita Nickel) Tonny Gultom said the company will build a rooftop solar power plant (PLTS) with a capacity of 40 Megawatt Peak (MWp) in 2024.

The 40 MWp capacity is the initial stage of the company's rooftop solar power plant development target of 300 MWp as an energy transition measure to reduce carbon emissions.

"The 40 Megawatt Peak (MWp), out of 300 MWp plan, rooftop solar power plant will be built this year," Tonny said in the 2nd Mining for Journalist Workshop at Cerita Rasa Nusantara, Jakarta, Thursday.

He said the PLTS is planned to be on the roof of the company's factory. In the future, it will also be built on the company's former mining land.

"We plan to place the 40 MWp on the factory and the camp roof. In the future, we will build on the former mine," Tonny said.

He continued that the construction of this rooftop solar power plant requires a fairly expensive investment compared to the Steam Power Plant (PLTU).

"(The plant) requires about 1 hectare of land for one megawatt," Tonny said.

Harita Nickel targets the construction of 300 MWp of Rooftop PLTS as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions to support Indonesia in achieving Net Zero Emission (NZE) 2060.

Tonny estimates that the construction costs reach 1 million to 1.5 million US dollars per 1 MWp. Thus, the costs for a capacity of 300 MWp could reach up to USD 300 million to 450 million or around Rp4.5 trillion to IDR 6.75 trillion.

In the environmental aspect, Harita Nickel uses coal-fired power plants as the primary energy to support business operations in the mining and downstream sectors.

The government itself has begun to implement a program to phase out coal-fired power plants to realize NZE by 2060.

Image source: ANTARA / Muhammad Heriyanto
Source: https://www.antaranews.com/berita/3989391/harita-nickel-akan-bangun-plts-40-mwp-di-2024-demi-transisi-energi