Key takeaways from Solartech Indonesia 2023

From pv magazine Global

In early March, Solartech Indonesia 2023 took place at the Jakarta Convention and Exhibition Center, attracting around 20,000 visitors and 300 industry exhibitors from 20 countries.

The event is the country’s largest green energy trade show, and despite Indonesia’s relatively small solar market, the event highlighted the region’s increasing interest in new solar investment.

“We think Indonesia is still in the starting years and utility companies are now beginning to develop their first PV projects,” said Jimmy Shen, brand manager at Chinese module maker JinkoSolar, who added that while the show attracts fewer visitors than other countries, potential clients can still be found.

According to Lorca Wei, ASEN marketing manager at Chinese inverter manufacturer Sungrow, most of the Indonesian companies active in the solar business were present at the event. “We invited and met our major clients at this trade show, which we hope may have a higher number of visitors next year,” he said.

Growatt Sales Manager Anna Kang told pv magazine the event is an opportunity for the company to meet new and existing clients and, at the same time, showcase some of its new technologies. “We are among the three largest inverter suppliers in this country and we will definitely come back to this show next year,” she said.

The event also showed the attractiveness of Indonesia for solar module manufacturing. “We see the government as ready to transform the energy sector and the renewable energy industry,” said Elaine Zhu, marketing manager at Chinese PV production equipment supplier Autowell. “We also already have some clients here.”

Irene Li, sales manager at Chinese mounting system provider Mibet, added that Indonesia is an interesting market for floating PV, for which demand is constantly growing. “This event is a good platform to understand what Indonesia really needs.”

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Indonesia had around 211 MW of installed PV capacity at the end of 2021. The agency expects that the country may reach 66 GW of solar by 2030.

According to recent data published by IESR based on the solar resource mapping of NREL Re Explore, Indonesia has the technical potential to deploy up to 655 GW of cumulative rooftop PV capacity.