New Zealand’s Ambassador to Indonesia, David Taylor, today officially opened the geothermal course entitled Geothermal Energy Development, where Science and Engineering Meet in KPTU Faculty of Engineering, UGM. This geothermal course aims to improve geothermal human resource capabilities to support the government in accelerating the increase of geothermal power plants up to 6000 MWe by the year 2020.
According to Dean of UGM Faculty of Engineering, Dr Tumiran, the geothermal course was held through cooperation with two major institutions from New Zealand which are strong in geothermal education and research, i.e., GNS Science and the University of Auckland. This course is also conducted to continue the long tradition of mutually beneficial cooperation between Indonesia and New Zealand in education, research and geothermal business," he said in his speech at the KPTU Faculty of Engineering, Monday (12/7).
Tumiran added that the geothermal course is quite important remembering that up to now Indonesia’s largest energy comes from fossil energy while until the year 2018, primary energy, particularly for electricity generation, still depends on fossil energy. On the other hand, Indonesia is considered to have potential geothermal energy sources up to 27176 MWe. Unfortunately, this huge amount of energy is not yet used optimally."The Indonesian geothermal energy source is actually quite potential to be developed. Unfortunately, this is still not used optimally due to constraints in technology," he said.
Meanwhile, Chairman of the geothermal course Organizing Committee, Ir. Pri Utami, M.Sc., added the courses that will be held until July 17 is attended by 60 participants from UGM or outside UGM. In the course two external observers of the New Zealand Embassy and eight internal observers of the Geothermal Study Center will also be present. "The course is given by 9 geothermal experts, five of them are geoscience geothermal expert and four of them are geothermal engineering experts," added Utami.
Other than exercises and discussions, the course is also supplemented with a visit to the Dieng geothermal field in Central Java. In addition to providing lectures, guest lecturers from New Zealand will also visit UGM research facilities and education as well as Geophysical Studies Program in Faculty of Maths and Natural Sciences.
"This event is also to strengthen existing research cooperation and explore new possibilities of cooperation," he said. This geothermal course has been initiated since November last year, preceded by a WCRU program (Faculty Promotion) visit by UGM Geothermal Study Center delegation, led by Dr. Tumiran, to those two institutions in New Zealand. It was continued with the return visit by the GNS Science delegation to UGM in April 2010 and meetings with the dean and academic staff from the School of Engineering the University of Auckland and New Zealand Ambassador at the World Geothermal Congress in Bali from 25-30 April 2010.