Geothermal Resources and Reserves in Indonesia: a Revision

Abstract

Indonesia is fortunate to have many high, medium and low enthalpy geothermal resources. From the early 1980s until the late 1990s the geothermal potential for power production was estimated at about 20,000 MWe. The most recent estimate exceeds 29,000 MWe derived from more than 250 sites of high to low enthalpy sources across Indonesia. This resource estimate has been obtained by adding all of the estimated geothermal potential resources and reserves classified as "speculative, hypothetic, possible, probable, and proven" from all sites where such information is available. However, this approach to estimating the geothermal potential is flawed because it includes double counting of some reserve estimates as resource estimates, thus giving an inflated figure for the total national geothermal potential. This paper proposes to redefine and revise the geothermal resource estimate in Indonesia using a more realistic methodology.