Asia’s next clean energy battle isn’t in China or India. It’s in Indonesia

In the next 10 years, almost half of Indonesia’s population will enter the work force. Only three in 10 people will not be of working age by 2030. Conventional poverty rates are declining, millions are moving into cities each year. The island nation’s labour force will surge, and with it, disposable income and energy demands.

The picture is similar elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but while its neighbours have spent years developing clean energy options, Indonesia has not negotiated a new renewable energy contract in three years.

Indonesia’s room for growth means it will be the largest contributor to the region’s ballooning energy demand, joining India and China as a global hotspot for power needs. Indonesia, which is Southeast Asia’s most populous nation with more than 250 million people, expects its electricity needs to almost double in the next 10 years, tripled from 2010. But its heavy reliance on fossil fuels, the highest in the region, means it may offset the rest of the region’s positive growth toward renewable energy.

But there’s some hope in sight. Indonesia expects an end to stalled clean energy growth in March, when a ministry regulation aims to attract renewables investment that has so far preferred the welcoming arms of neighbours like Malaysia and Vietnam.