In the near future, Indonesia will have a 145 MW floating solar power plant (PLTS). Located in West Java, the Cirata floating solar power plant is expected to be the largest in the Southeast Asia (ASEAN) region.
The Cirata Floating Solar Power Plant, which is the first floating solar power plant in Indonesia and the largest in Southeast Asia, will be commissioned in October 2023. It is expected to be operational in early 2024.
The project has been in the works for about three years and is located in the Cirata Reservoir across three districts in West Java, namely Purwakarta, Cianjur, and West Bandung.
Covering an area of 200 hectares, consisting of 13 blocks, and equipped with more than 340,000 solar panels, it has the capacity to generate approximately 245 million kWh of clean energy annually. This is enough to power more than 50,000 households and reduce carbon emissions by more than 200,000 tons per year.
With a total investment of Rp 1.8 trillion, the project promises an attractive return on investment that will boost investor confidence while providing solutions to the clean energy challenges facing the country.
The Cirata Floating Solar Power Plant is the result of a collaboration between PT Pembangkitan Jawa Bali Investasi (PJBI), a subsidiary of PT PLN, and Masdar Energy, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. According to the PLN Nusantara Power website on January 20, 2020, the contract for the sale of electricity from the Cirata floating solar power plant was signed on January 13, 2020 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
The solar power plant was originally scheduled to achieve commercial operation (COD) in November 2022. However, the operation encountered a number of obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic.
