Public protests over high air pollution in Jakarta due to emissions from transportation, coal-fired power plants and other sectors (Photo: PSHK)
By IGG Maha Adi – Chairman Green Press Indonesia and Bertha Challenge Fellow 2024
Disinformation is growing to deny the involvement of coal-fired power plants in major pollution cases in the capital. PT PLN, which has a monopoly position as the sole electricity supplier, is detrimental to the community who want to switch to cleaner and more environmentally friendly electricity sources but portrays itself as the vanguard of the transition to environmentally friendly energy.
- A year-long investigation by Green Press and Beritalingkungan.com into the energy transition has focused on the early retirement plan of all PLN steam-fired power plants (PLTU). The launching of the energy transition roadmap was held back, to the detriment of their business.
- The Ministry of Environment and Forestry disseminated the disinformation that the operation of coal-fired power plants increases pollution in Jakarta.
Mujiono, 45-year-old, still remembers the times he had to carry passengers on his double motorbike, cutting through Jalan Sudirman, Central Jakarta in June 2023. As an online motorbike taxi looking for passengers around the most congested areas in the capital on Jalan Sudirman, Jalan Thamrin, and Jalan Rasuna Said, almost every day he crossed the three most congested roads in Jakarta from morning to evening, even night. At that time, in mid-August 2023, the sky in Jakarta had been foggy several times, often his view was obstructed so that Mujiono had to turn on the lights in broad daylight. “It turns out that the smoke is pollution, they said it was from a power plant in Banten that was blown by the wind,” he said. He admitted that at that time he often coughed along with the arrival of the haze even though he was wearing a face mask.
During August 2023, the city of Jakarta had indeed become the most polluted city in the world several times. This is the first time Jakarta has been ranked as the most polluted city in the world, beating several other cities that usually top the list, such as Dhaka, Lahore, or Delhi. According to an international agreement, the Air Pollutant Standard Index with a value of 101-199 indicates the poor quality of air in general, which can cause health problems in sensitive individuals. Data presented by IQAIR for August 9 and 23, 2023 shows Jakarta in the first position among the world’s most polluted cities with air quality measured at 161 AQI US. On August 31, 2023, it again came up as a first positioned large city carrying the world’s most air-polluted place with the air quality index of 175.
Director General of Pollution and Environmental Damage Control of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (KLHK), Sigit Reliantoro, claimed that this was proven by the results of the Sentinel-5P satellite which contains information on the distribution of tropospheric column density for several gases including nitrogen dioxide (NO2). In the satellite image that Sigit showed, emissions around the Suralaya PLTU did not show any distribution to Jakarta. He said this happened because the wind was blowing towards the Sunda Strait. “We also conducted a study for the PLTU, also to answer whether the PLTU enters Jakarta or not. It has been confirmed that most of it enters the Sunda Strait, not towards Jakarta,” said Sigit in a media briefing in the KLHK arboretum area on August 13.
He says, poor air quality in Jakarta is more because of local factors. One of them is the massive use of private transportation such as motorbikes. In the data he presented, the largest contributor of emissions, namely 44 percent, is taken from transportation. Then, the industrial sector is 25.17 percent, industrial manufacturing 10 percent, housing 14 percent and commercial 1 percent. He did not mention the emissions from the PLTU that many people are talking about. Meanwhile, Sigit explained, based on 2018-2022 data, the total number of registered motor vehicles in DKI is 24.5 million. As many as 78 percent are motorcycles. The growth from 2018 to 2022 was 5.7 percent. “So actually, it corroborates the fact that this is local in nature. None of it actually is coming from the Suralaya PLTU to Jakarta,” he said.
Exposure of Jakarta city air pollution by officials of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry, August 13, 2023. In his slides in this photo, he emphasized the phenomenon of local pollutants, not coal-fired power plant operations, as the main source of pollution in the capital city (Photo: IGGM Adi/Green Press)
The statement from KLHK is in contrast to a statement from the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute (LBH Jakarta) last year. They have issued a warning about the dangers of emissions caused by around 16 power plants around the capital city of Jakarta that operate 24 hours non-stop. This institution also assessed that PLTUs close to the capital city, including one in Cirebon, West Java, will definitely reduce the air quality in Jakarta to be bad.
LBH Jakarta Public Lawyer Jeany Sirai told beritalingkungan.com that the government should create stricter environmental control policies. “One solution is not to add PLTUs, especially in the areas of Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi that are close to the capital city. Why are investors targeting this area even though the electricity capacity is more than sufficient,” he said. The information we have collected shows that in the Electricity Supply Business Plan (RUPTL), there are approximately 39 new Coal-Fired PLTUs to be built with a capacity of 13.8 gigawatts or 43 percent. Not only pollution, the addition of PLTU is also predicted to produce 83 million tons of carbon emissions per year during 2021-2030 which will have an impact on increasing the earth’s temperature or global warming.
There are also academics who support the opinion of this KLHK official, among others: Professor Puji Lestari, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). According to Puji, in fact, when the pollution hits Jakarta in August, the wind blows to the Sunda Strait or to the west. “Transboundary pollution is highly influenced by meteorological factors, especially wind directions, and currently the direction is to the west and southwest or towards the Sunda Strait, not to Jakarta,” he said. Like what happened in Jakarta, it comes from transportation, not PLTU,” he said. He admitted to us that there was a contribution of PLTU emissions to Jakarta’s pollution, but only 10%, but only during the rainy season and not during the dry season like August 2023 when the pollution is very high.
Reject then Accept
Two weeks after the press briefing at KLHK, its minister Siti Nurbaya was summoned for a meeting with President Joko Widodo. By then, already, there was a lot of news going on that the President had coughs from poor air in the capital and even a video of the Minister of Finance, hoarse in a hearing with the parliament as he was also suffering from an upper respiratory tract infection due to poor air quality.
After the limited meeting, the Minister of Environment and Forestry gave a quite surprising press statement as he said that emissions from PLTU was one of the main sources of air pollution in Jakarta. Minister Siti said that the source of air pollution in Jakarta and its surroundings came from motor vehicles, which had a contribution of 44 percent, then PLTU with 34 percent, and the remaining percent came from others, including household sources. The Ministry admitted to having examined 161 companies suspected of contributing to Jakarta’s high pollution levelsThey also suspended the operation of several metal processing companies, waste incinerators, and coal stockfiles companies that will supply power plants in North Jakarta.
The three types of businesses have existed in Jakarta since long and are operating almost every day without causing high pollution. The inspection by the ministry raises questions. The coal stockpile in North Jakarta only stores and transports without burning coal at all, so it doesn’t cause pollution. “We must check the fly ash in this stockpile which is also dangerous for health because it is a source of pollutants,” said one of the KLHK law enforcement (gakkum) staff during the field inspection.
Directly after the minister’s official statement, his subordinates immediately gave supporting statements. One of them was the Director General of Environmental and Forestry Law Enforcement Rasio Ridho Sani called PLTU as the main polluter of Jakarta’s sky. “The first source of pollutants is from the transportation sector and the second is from power plant emissions,” Ridho told journalists.
Press statement by Indonesian Minister of Environment and Forestry Siti Nurbaya on August 28, 2023. She confirmed that coal-fired power plants contributed 34% to Jakarta’s pollution while refuting her subordinate’s statement two weeks earlier (Photo: Presidential Press Bureau)
Our written question to the Minister about the reasons behind the disinformation carried out by the Director General of PPKL two weeks earlier during the press briefing, then what was the reason behind the change in the Minister’s conclusion which finally named the PLTU as one of the main causes of Jakarta’s pollution. We also asked the Minister to see the daily recording of the Suralaya PLTU and several other power plants’ emissions but never received any response. We got information from one of the former staff of the Minister who knew the contents of the meeting with the President after the Minister of KLHK explained in his office.
Jokowi called beritalingkungan.com to reprimand President Joko Widodo and the Minister of Maritime Affairs and Investment Luhut Binsar Panjaitan to Minister Siti Nurbaya for not delivering prompt information to the public about the pollution and presenting wrong information on the source of pollutants in the city of Jakarta. This brought The President ordered the Minister of KLHK to open up data with much openness to the public this day that the PLTU became one of the main causes too. “The Minister Siti Nurbaya actually knew about it and had prepared the data so that when she held the press conference she was confident in saying it. And it was true that day the Minister said that there were three main sources of pollutants for the capital’s sky, namely the transportation sector, coal-fired power plants and other sectors including households. That day the Minister of KLHK denied his subordinate’s statement.
Finally, we received information about the emissions movement around Jakarta from the report of the Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA), a non-profit organization based in Helsinki, Finland. It has data modeling emissions from Suralaya PLTU and other PLTUs around Jakarta using a wind direction database for different months.
The conclusion is that the direction of the wind can be from the north or northwest towards the southeast, namely the direction of Jakarta City, and if supported by the difference in air pressure, emissions will fall into the sky of the capital. When the air in Jakarta is hotter than its surroundings, then the heat will trap the emission. When there is no strong wind, the emissions could last all afternoon or evening. “We are not concluding that the Power Plants are the sole contributor of the Jakarta urban pollution. But it is explicit from the modeling that the Power Plants’ emissions reach to the City of Jakarta”, said Katherine Hasan who is an Analyst with CREA -the organization which carried out the modeling. Such modelling could indicate what amount or proportion the PLTU-emission contributes to the Jakarta-pollution.
NO2, SO2 and PM2.5 concentrations over Jakarta on the “worst days” of pollution (source: CREA, 2020)
They developed 3-dimensional meteorological data for every hour of the modeling year 2014 including wind speeds, directions, humidity, temperature, atmospheric stability and other relevant variables using the TAPM meteorological model developed by Australia’s national science agency CSIRO. The figure shows examples of the worst-case pollution dispersion in Jakarta, when air masses arrived in the city from the Suralaya industrial zone where five large CFPPs are located.
We also sent a letter to the communication division of PLN, and directly to the president director via his personal LinkedIn account. No reply was received for both. We request an explanation and access to daily emission data from several PLTUs around Jakarta during the period when the capital was wrapped in pollution. We also asked why so many PLN employees were involved in coal supply corruption and the delay in the announcement of the energy transition roadmap by PT PLN to the public.
Concerning the latter, we got an explanation from a former member of the National Energy Council, Satya Widya Yudha, now commissioner of a state-owned enterprise. Satya asserted that there were still partial differences of opinion between PLN and the JETP Secretariat in terms of the interest rate on the loan to be given and how many and where the PLTUs should be retired. “The United States as the main supporter of the energy transition through JETP has not yet provided proof of its funding commitment so that PLN cannot provide details to stop the operation of the PLTUs they manage,” he said. In line with Satya is the Executive Director of the Institute for Essential Services Reform (IESR) Faby Tumiwa. “PLN is in charge of supplying electricity for the entire nation, and this mandate is not easy to be done without clear investment in transitioning to renewable energy and retiring PTLU early,” he told us.
Rewards and No Punishment
When explaining about the sources of Jakarta’s pollutants last year, the Minister of KLHK emphasized that he would sanction the companies proven to have polluted Jakarta’s air. It means that there will be three groups of pollutant sources to be sanctioned according to the Minister’s statement, namely transportation companies, PLTUs and other types of companies.
In the case of a PT, the owner must be subject to sanctions. As far as this news article was written, only two companies have been temporarily closed, namely the coal stockpile company in Bekasi and the waste collector in Tangerang. Meanwhile, for PLTUs, instead of being subject to sanctions, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry gave 28 awards in 2023 to PLN, including environmental performance awards. In 2024, the company received an award from ProKlima as a token of climate concern. While the Lestari Award was bestowed for Investing in Climate Editor’s Choice Award 2024 and to the President Director of PLN for Inspirational Figures In Environmental and Social Sustainability. (Sic!).
The Minister of Forestry and Environment (left) presents an award to PT PLN. The company that owns the majority of PLTUs around Jakarta and has caused the Indonesian capital to become the most polluted city in the world in 2023, has actually received dozens of awards including in the fields of environmental performance, climate, and sustainability (Photo: IST).
Fight Heat with Heat
Aris, a 29-year-old parking attendant at a culinary spot on the edge of Lake Cirata in West Bandung Regency, West Java, says the air has gotten hotter since the installation of floating solar panels was installed on the lake in front of his village.
The Cirata PLTS Project is a National Strategic Project from the collaboration of two countries, namely Indonesia and the United Arab Emirates, involving subholding PLN Nusantara Power with Masdar with an investment value of US$18.8 billion. After three years of work, Indonesian President Joko Widodo finally inaugurated the 192 MWp Cirata Floating PLTS on September 9, 2023; it is the largest floating PLTS in Southeast Asia and ranks third in the world. The floating project can reduce carbon emissions by 586.3 tons per day or 214,000 tons of emissions each year, according to a claim by PLN.
“Now the heat feels longer than before the project. It used to be dry in the dry season but now it feels hot during the rainy season,” Aris told beritalingkaran.com. Aris, a parking attendant and a local resident of Ciroyom village on the edge of the Cirata reservoir is not alone. Two food stall owners also admit feeling the heat. “The wind is still quite strong here, but the gusts of wind also feel hot,” they said. Aris’ concerns about the increasingly hot weather were actually conveyed by village officials around Cirata, namely Cipeundeuy Sub-district Head Heri Kemaluan in 2021 when the project was just about to start. According to Heri, the giant project could cause the air to get hotter because the panels reflect heat.
Another study, published in Nature Scientific Report on 13 October 2016, stated that large-scale solar power plants raise local temperatures, creating a ‘solar heat island’ effect, much smaller but similar to that created by urban or industrial areas, according to a new study. Even though this study has been conducted on another ecosystem, namely desert conditions of the US, it should be ensured that the community’s perceptions are clarified to them in person concerning the Cirata project.
Negative environmental impacts from large floating solar photovoltaic plants have been due to disturbing the bottom of the water ecosystem with its shading potential, change in temperature or oxygen level within water, consequently affecting aquatic flora. Apart from that, possible leakage of injurious chemicals from materials of platform into water due to its poor design or inadequate care may occur. The process of its construction and maintenance causes more disturbances of the water body and all its inhabitants.
Unfortunately, Heri’s and Aris’ voices were not heard nor responded by PLN, and the electricity company only delivered the goodness of the project to reduce the plus impacts of climate change, especially global warming. Trying to contact PLN again about whether the complaint of the community due to hot air was reasonable or for other reasons also did not get a response. That is like fighting against global warming but getting hotter air instead.
Youtuber Jro Panggung or “Ajik Online” from Tabanan, Bali with a background of 5000 Watt solar roof at his house. PLN cut off his electricity supply completely since 2021 because he did not want to pay a fine of more than US$1,000 for refusing to increase his electricity capacity to 7700 Watts as a condition for obtaining a permit to use hybrid electricity. (Photo: IGGM Adi/Green Press).
Hate Solar
That’s such a beautiful house, located in the environment of Tabanan, Bali, which is kept clean. The owner is Jaro Panggung, or more commonly known in the circles as Ajik Online. He also has a story of how PT PLN, the electricity company with a monopoly on the sale of electricity throughout Indonesia, has been making it difficult for people to turn to environmentally friendly energy sources and enjoy cleaner air – a 180-degree turn from the hype about how the state-owned company was committed to supporting national emission reductions with new and renewable energy.
Starting from watching solar panels on television, Ajik tried to install solar panels on the roof of his house with a power of 300 Watts, which then continued to increase due to his household needs. The panels caused the use of electricity from PLN to continue to decrease so that his bill payments were getting smaller. “It turns out it’s nice if we don’t have to pay for electricity anymore, so I continue to increase the power of the solar panels to 1640 Watts in 2021 and to 5000 Watts in 2022,” he said. In early 2021 he chose on-grid, namely connecting electricity from his solar panels to PLN electricity. He said his acts were wrong, knowing that such practices should not have been carried out without prior permission from PLN, but there was a reason, as PLN asked him to increase the power to 7700 Watts, which he could not meet. It was reported that PLN had learned about the solar panels at Ajik’s house through a YouTube video. “With that much power, I will pay more subscriptions fee even though the electricity is not used. “This is contrary to our desire to get free electricity from solar power,” he told beritalingkungan.com when met at his house.
PLN, the electricity company, imposed a fine of Rp18 million (US$1200) on Ajik, whereas at that time he wasn’t working full time. After four negotiations about the too-large size of the fine, no agreement was reached: “Finally I chose to go off-grid and disconnect from the PLN electricity network,” he said. Ajik never had to pay for electricity since that day and never was such a day when the solar panels disappointed him. “If we know how to install, choose the right equipment and maintain it, these solar panels can last up to 50 years,” he said. He and his three family members have received uninterrupted electricity every day since 2010, while all of his neighbors have experienced several blackouts in one year. “I feel like they hate that these solar panels are getting more popular,” he said.
Why does PLN not simply let many homes install solar panels that can help speed up the achievement of both emission reduction and offset targets? “PLN’s business will be disrupted because they definitely will lose if many people install solar panels at home,” said Ajik. So, while the state electricity company claims to be supportive and strongly committed to helping achieve Indonesia’s NZE target by 2060, reality is far from the mark.
According to Ajik, Regulation of the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources No. 2 of 2024 concerning Rooftop Solar Power Plants is still detrimental for people who want to enjoy free electricity, even though it has been changed many times. For example, PLN no longer limits the amount of power coming from rooftop solar panels, but gives a quota. “If we apply for a permit to PLN, we will be given a quota of, for example, 10% of the PLN electricity installed in our homes. A 10% quota is very small power that can be produced in many cases in society,” he said.
Another way to suppress the growth rate of solar panels in society is, for example, by requiring Exim kwh to be used, but in a very difficult way to obtain. The Exim kwh is a tool, a measuring device, which shows how much electrical flow goes into and out of the rooftop Solar Panel system to the PLN distribution network. The meter allows homeowners to sell excess PLTS-generated electricity to PLN. “In reality, the request for Exim kwh from one year ago may not necessarily be given today,” he said. As a result, people feel frustrated when they want to install solar panels and then return to old type electricity source, which mostly uses coal which is widely known as dirty energy sources. That’s PLN electricity.
IGG Maha Adi
