SMART GRID OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN INDONESIA 2022

Edited and Summarized by Nisma Islami Maharani & Dwiriansyah Abdilah Uploaded by Prakarsa Jaringan Cerdas Indonesia, 08-19-2022

Ir. Wanhar - Director of Electrical Engineering and Environment at Directorate General of Electricity of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR) said that Indonesia's electricity needs a smart grid for future support of Renewable Energy in Indonesia on PJCI 7th Anniversary July 2022. Indonesia, which is an archipelagic country, is in dire need of electricity interconnection. Electrical Interconnection is nothing without a smart grid- Internet of Things. Currently, it is not only PLN (State Electricity Company) that provides electricity, but there are also business areas that are required to make their own RUPTL (National Electricity Supply Business Plan) as much as 15% (minimum) of new renewable energy built from the total national electricity.

Furthermore, it has been evaluated by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources where their business areas in their planning are still planning the construction of fossil power plants, especially steam power plants, but some of these business areas have no objections but find it difficult to prioritize choosing new and renewable energy so that this is a challenge for Indonesia, seeing some of their efforts are businesses that enter into the national strategy. On the other hand, several other business areas have committed to developing new renewable energy in stages, and in the meantime, they are still using non-renewable energy until their renewable energy generator can be operated. The government still tolerates such cases. On the other hand, a PERPRES (Presidential Regulation) will be made containing provisions for the Steam power plant (PLTU) moratorium. Indonesia is still a mismatch between demand and supply, so smart grid-interconnection is urgently needed for new and renewable energy in the future so that transitional energy is required for Indonesia to all stakeholders as well as industrial areas.

From State Electricity Company, Mr. Zainal Arifin The Executive Vice President of Engineering and Technology in the PJCI 7th anniversary also said that macro perspectives in Indonesia include how to prepare energy not only in sufficient quantities but must be reliable (saving not too much). high and losses are not too low), must be affordable (not too expensive) because it will reduce the competitiveness of the industry, and must be reliable and sustainable which must be sustainable. PLTU capacity has decreased by 50% but in terms of fuel mix, it is still 66% so it still relies on fossil coal. In this Trilemma we are facing an energy transition where there is 3D driving, including Decarbonization: how our CO2 goes down, Digitalization: how to create and incorporate IoT, AI, connectivity in our electricity, and Decentralization: how customers have the ability to consume electricity from their own utility and can produce own electricity. This Trilemma and Energy Transition cause future electricity trends to become increasingly important but keep in mind that electricity production will increasingly come from renewable energy, thus requiring a smarter and more flexible grid that can connect to all renewable energy generators and technologies. such as battery storage, distribution of power generation, and so on. PLN places Smart Grid as a solution to answer the trilemma of energy and energy transition. Smart grid targets include 3:

improve efficiency, reliability, and resilience through automation and digitization from power, and distribution to retail.
increase customer involvement, so that they are not only consumers but also prosumers
increase the penetration of renewable energy into the existing system network.

Figure 1. Trilemma and energy transition in Indonesia

The following are the solutions provided by the smart grid:

Better forecasting. Widespread instrumentation and advanced computer models allow system operators to better predict and manage RE variability and uncertainty. For example wind energy power production always changes, so in the future, we should have smart forecasting.
Smart inverters. Inverters and other power electronics can provide control to system operators, as well as automatically provide some level of grid support. For the logic, the connectivity of VRE-photovoltaic is always disturbed in the system and dispatching, so if we use smart inverters the dispatching can be submitted forward to the generator.
Demand response. Smart meters, coupled with intelligent appliances and even industrial scale loads, can allow demand-side contributions to balancing. Indonesia has not been able to implement this because the regulations do not yet exist. there should be a network role in the electricity demand system not only from the supply.
Integrated storage. Storage can help to smooth short-term variations in RE output, as well as to manage mismatches in supply and demand. Renewable energy should not always pass through transmission, because when there is a lot of renewable energy, there can be a change in storage, for example, green hydrogen. so energy imports from Australia to Singapore do not have to go through a long transmission, but what is sent is the product from green hydrogen power and large photovoltaics there. Energy transition also creates disruption, one of which is hydrogen as an energy resource and energy carrier.
Real-time system awareness and management. Instrumentation and control equipment across transmission and distribution networks allows system operators to have real-time awareness of system conditions, and increasingly, the ability to actively manage grid behavior.

The smart grid doesn't just talk about the grid itself because it talks from retail to the power grid. The super grid in the context of the smart grid is on the demand or customer side. So that the smart grid consists of 3 levels including optimizing and monitoring and controlling in real-time (in blue in Figure 2), the second is strengthening the capacity of the network, transmission, and distribution and the last is how the smart grid can enable engagement from the customer side.

Figure 2. Smart Grid Concept Indonesia

Roadmap smart grid for Indonesia’s power development from PLN. Roadmap short term 2021-2025 has 6 main initiatives :

Power plant digitalization
Substation automation and digitalization
Distribution grid management
EV Charging Station and e-mobility
Smart micro grid
Implementation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)

Figure 3. Connection Map-Digital Power Plant

All 53 power plants in Indonesia owned by PLN will be connected through two hubs in Surabaya and Jakarta, so they can carry out digital control rooms, digital operation maintenance, predictive maintenance, and advanced data analytics. When it comes to digitalization, it has 3 stages, namely digitization, transport management, and predictive data analytics. PLN has around 500 substations (GI) throughout Indonesia, of which the most on the island of Java are 349 GI, not all of which are full SAS which can be used as substations due to budget constraints, so only 2 to 3 GIs can be used as substations.

Figure 4. Distribution Grid Management

Distribution Grid Management consists of several projects and it is known that PLN customers are already above 82 million and the PLN network has hundreds of kilometers of circuits, so PLN makes one of them online monitoring losses so there is no need for algorithms anymore because all transaction points (+600,000 points) will install smart meters starting from Sulawesi. This project will be completed in 2024. There are several locations that PLN uses for Zero Down Time, one of which is in Labuan Bajo which in the future requires a smart grid on the distribution side. PLN has also tried Faw Locate Isolated Recovery at one of its substations. So that when there is a direct disturbance, it can be isolated and have no impact on substations or other networks and will then be recovered.

Figure 5. E-Mobility and EV Charging Infrastructure PLN

Along with decarbonization, PLN is trying to develop e-Mobility and Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure (SPKLU) (figure 5). In 2035, 60,000 SPKLU will be built to meet Indonesia's renewable energy target. Another development is The deployment process on Smart Micro Grid in Indonesia is still in the tender process and dieselization is in hundreds of locations in Indonesia with a capacity of 200-300 MW (early stage) and Indonesia itself still has the potential of 2.1 GW for smart micro grids with at least 79 energy management systems are needed in each location. Regarding batteries, Indonesia needs at least 2.3 GWH for the entire smart micro grid. Then PLN also explained the other smart grid program which is Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), so that the meter at the customer can carry out 2-way communication and can be remotely used to find out the real-time kWh meter usage by the electricity consumer. AMI has previously been installed in 100,000 kWh meters of customers and is targeted to be installed up to 1,200,000 customers (minimum) where needed and up to Rp. 2.1 Trillion (IDR). Installation of AMI in the following years is targeted to be installed 5 million per year with a budget of Rp. 9 trillion (IDR) per year.

Then the smart grid challenge itself, when summarized, includes:

PLN is still behind other utilities for smart grid adoption and investment
Not sufficient knowledge about the Smart grid, most people think the Smart grid is only about technology (on the grid)
The smart grid needs huge investment
Dynamic pricing, that the price of electricity should fluctuate so that it can reduce people's interest in switching to electric vehicles
No Policy related to Smart grid yet
High variability of network: 7 high voltages, medium voltages, and off-grid which has high complexity compared to other countries

Mr. Muhammad Reza is the President Director of PLN Engineering. Mr. Reza conveyed the smart grid relationship between energy transitions, accompanied by an explanation of the electric power system to indicators of system power balance. Mr. Reza also explained load variations and supply variations and their relationship. Then it is also explained about the dynamic stability of the system until it is explained further about static balance and dynamic balance. Our electrical system must be constant at 50 Hz, if something is damaged or dies, it will be the operator's job to balance it. PLTS and PLTB are famous in Indonesia because they are easy to build, so how to connect and distribute renewable energy to consumer networks throughout the island? of course through the smart grid. Smart grid opportunities include building Demand Side Management, Smart Home, Smart Grid, Smart City, IoT, and Interconnection of transmission networks. Smart grids can create:

Static Balance
VRE power generation forecast
Oversizing VRE capacity + Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS)
Support dispatchable generator

Figure 6. E-Mobility and EV Charging Infrastructure PLN

b. Dynamic Balance

Reserve VRE generation to anticipate dynamic conditions
VRE + BESS hybrid solution & fast response dispatchable generator

And according to Mr. Reza, it can be concluded that:

Electrical Power System operation requires power balance at any instant time
Intermittency in the generation output of VRE challenges the grid operators to balance power
There are several grid operation/technology options to mitigate potential problems
It required a techno-economic approach to find the most optimal solution.

In conclusion, the digital technology applied to the smart grid allows two-way communication between the operator of the electric power operation system and its customers through the sensing process along the transmission lines of substations and distribution lines to measure energy transactions at customers, this is what makes the electricity grid smart. Smart Grid is an opportunity as an electric power system manager, this concept that has never existed before and after MEMR no. 4/2020 to move the energy industry into a new era in terms of availability, and efficiency that will contribute to the environment, efficiency, economy and optimization of electric power operations.

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