**Title**: Energy in the North - Hafsah Halidah
**Date**: January, 28 2026
**Participants**: Amanda Byrd, Hafsah Halidah

00;00;00;08 - 00;00;08;06 [Hafsah Halidah] The reservoir is used to host this floating PV about, yeah, like she said, 145 megawatt.

00;00;08;06 - 00;00;49;22 [Amanda Byrd] This week on energy in the North, I continue the conversation with Hafsah Halidah, a senior engineering specialist at the Research Center for Electrical Technology at Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency in Jakarta. A new directive from the recently elected Indonesian president sets a national goal of reaching 100GW of installed solar across the island nation, and a net zero emissions target for 2060. Currently, Indonesia has around 15GW of solar installed. And when I think of Indonesia, I think of steep mountains terraced with agriculture and the flat areas covered in rice paddies. I asked Hafsah whether solar installations would compete with agriculture.

00;00;49;22 - 00;01;35;22 [Hafsah Halidah] So, there's a lot of type of soil in Indonesia, and not all of them are compatible with farming and rice fields. So usually for solar, we just use, those areas that are not suitable for, farming or, rice paddies and so on. But there are also several, projects concerning agrovoltaic, right. So we basically combine the energy we get from the PV, to like, make the, agriculture, process much more green with the help of PV. Yeah. So it's not competing because they use a different kind of, field. Yeah.

00;01;35;22 - 00;02;19;12 [Hafsah Halidah] And if you go to Jakarta right now, you can see so much of electric vehicle on the street. I think EVs has been gaining traction in Indonesia. And, you know, we are seeing well, a lot of debate coming off the, about the electric vehicle because people are saying we're not green enough to produce energy. So you're basically just shifting the pollution from the car to the coal fired power plants. Everyone's just not that really into environmental. They just buy the electric vehicle because it cost less for them. Yeah. Because electricity, price is much more lower than, what they pay for their gasoline. It's about 8.5 cent. Park kilowatt hour.

00;02;19;12 - 00;02;20;22 [Amanda Byrd] That's incredibly cheap.

00;02;20;22 - 00;02;23;04 [Hafsah Halidah] Yeah. That's why I,

00;02;23;04 - 00;02;24;23 [Amanda Byrd] and it's mostly coal?

00;02;24;23 - 00;02;54;11 [Hafsah Halidah] Yeah, yeah. I think I'm paying the higher price. So there's subsidized also price on the lower level. So all around Indonesia, we have the same price no matter what, when you are in this isolated system. So it's, it's, equality, but, yeah, you know, it's harder for PLN to support this because, yeah, they, they use more money to generate the isolated system, but they pay the same price. Yeah. So it's, it's good, but it's challenging.

00;02;54;11 - 00;02;59;21 [Amanda Byrd] Wow. That's incredible. Do you have hydropower?

00;02;59;21 - 00;03;10;17 [Hafsah Halidah} Hydropower. Yeah we Yeah. He's a my, colleague in also in our research group, microgrid research group in, the research center for Electrical Technology here.

00;03;10;17 - 00;03;22;25 [Khotimatul Fauziah] Well we have some that's, that's in Cirata. We have Cirata power plant,the hydro power plant and we combined with the floating Pv, Floating PV. That's the new one.

00;03;22;25 - 00;03;24;12 [Amana Byrd] Floating. You have it now?

00;03;24;12 - 00;03;52;09 [Hafsah Halidah} Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, they have this hydropower plants Cirata and they combine it with the reservoir is used to, host this, floating PV about, yeah, like she said, 145 megawatt. So. Yeah. And they said that because they combine it with the hydropower, so the performance has been really great.

00;03;52;09 - 00;04;12;21 [Amanda Byrd] Hafsah Halidah is a senior engineering specialist at the center for Electrical Technology at Indonesia's National Research and Innovation Agency. And I'm Amanda Byrd, chief storyteller for the Alaska Center for Energy and Power. Find this story and more at uaf.edu/acep