Southeast Asia expected to see uptick in BESS deployments with Indonesia’s new BESS mandate

The Indonesian government has announced a new program in which it aims to build 320GWh of BESS across the country. It will include the deployment of 80GW of solar alongside this, aiming to provide 80,000 villages with microgrids comprising of 1MW of solar and 4MWh of BESS.

First projects expected to come online soon

The primary purpose of the initiative is to extend reliable and affordable electricity to rural areas nationwide, creating opportunities for productive economic growth. Management and operation of the solar-storage microgrids will be handled by a village-level cooperative Merah Putih, which targets bringing online the first 10,000 villages by August 2025. No date has been announced for the completion of all the projects and no mention has been made about project funding. Stakeholders have warned that the biggest potential bottleneck for the overall project is site selection and labour.

How does this fit in with Indonesia’s BESS landscape?

Currently Indonesia has a handful of operational BESS projects, all of which are sized less than 20MWh. Iola Hughes Head of Research at Rho Motion commented “The country has several larger projects in its pipeline, including the large-scale 8GWh Riau Islands Hybrid Megaproject, however, is it at a very early stage of its energy storage journey.”

“The ambitious PV and storage plan would significantly advance the country to be a leader in the region and a significant source for battery demand,” Hughes continued.

The Southeast Asia storage landscape

Across Southeast Asia, the Philippines is currently the clear market leader with over 1GWh of BESS online, with other countries having limited large scale storage capacity online. In Rho Motion’s Q3 BESS Forecast the region sees close to 60GWh installed over the next 5 years. The Indonesian policy has potential to greatly accelerate this.