During Mechanical Fair 2018 event, Mechanical Engineering students in UGM Vocational School hosted a national seminar themed the Potential and Management of Clean Energy in Indonesia for National Sustainable Development on Saturday (3/3) in the Auditorium of UGM Graduate School.
The event presented speakers Director of PT. Indonesia Power, Ir. Hj. Sripeni Inten Cahyani, MM, Director of New and Renewable Energy in the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Harris, S.T, M.T, and UGM academics, Dr. Ahmad Agus Setiawan.
Sripeni explained that PT. Indonesia Power company applied environmentally friendly and sustainable system in their operations. The company continues to develop waste management to turn it into renewable energy.
She further acknowledged the pros and cons to the energy issue due to the current infrastructure and economic growth in the country. Hence, she asked the young generation to improve their productivity and competitiveness, discipline as well as growth mindset to meet the challenges in the ASEAN Economic Community.
Meanwhile, Harris touched upon the need for minimising fuel energy use because of the depletion of fossil energy. Futhermore, he was quoted as saying that Indonesia is a coal exporting country, but domestically Indonesia does not use coal as much, hence, Indonesia’s access to energy has not achieved 100%.
UGM lecturer, Ahmad Agus, highlighted the issue happening at isolated islands in the country that is now starting to speak another language. This is a challenge to Indonesia for which he suggested to deploy Indonesian skilled human resource to those islands.
“Simple technology can be beneficial to the rural people and this can be done by the students, for example through the Student Community Service programme, partnering with supporting companies,” he said.
In addition, Prof. Dahlan Iskan, former Energy Minister, expressed his hopes through a video conference that Green Energy could be applicable in Indonesia despite the huge challenges. He put his hopes on geothermal energy that is abundant in Java and Sumatra. He expected the young generation for productivity and discipline to realise the clean energy achievement for national sustainable development.