DNV and Indonesia's PLN will collaborate on power grid resilience

DNV has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with electricity engineering consultancy PT PLN Engineering (PLNE), a subsidiary of Indonesia’s state-owned power distribution company PT PLN (Persero) (PLN).

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• A new DNV/PLN Memorandum of Understanding has been signed to cooperate on designing power-grid management systems for disaster recovery control in Indonesia

• The agreement supports PLN’s transformation strategy to become a technology and engineering leader.

• DNV brings in its extensive local and international experience of over 100 years in technical advisory work for power grid systems.

The two-year MoU signed recently in Indonesia’s capital Jakarta is intended as a cooperation plan in Scada/EMS design for disaster recovery control systems at PLN. Scada (supervisory control and data acquisition) and EMS (energy management systems) enable reliable, efficient, safe operation of equipment in the smart power grids and microgrids essential for helping Indonesia towards its energy decarbonization ambitions.

The country, a major coal exporter in Southeast Asia, plans to phase out coal by 2055 and achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060. However, it has struggled to find support for its phase-out plan, DNV’s Energy Transition Outlook 2023 notes.

Integrating power from renewables such as solar, wind, hydropower and geothermal into grids adds complexity to managing grid stability. Larger distributed generation and sensor network systems mean that more data than ever before needs to be managed for the network to run effectively. This makes Scada/EMS even more important for maintaining balanced power flows throughout the generation, transmission, and distribution chain.

The MoU expresses the parties’ mutual intentions to explore cooperation involving joint utilization of resources, joint marketing, and joint business development. An additional goal is to build the capacity of PLN-E’s employees through programmes including workshops locally and/or overseas.

Collaboration essential for the grid’s role in clean energy

“We are delighted to have struck this MoU to share DNV’s extensive local and international experience in technical advisory work for power grid systems, with a focus on Scada/EMS design,” said Brice Le Gallo, Vice President and Regional Director APAC, Energy Systems at DNV. “It stems from PLN-E’s vision to become a technology and engineering leader. Innovation and partnering with other technology leaders like DNV is part of PLN-E’s transformation strategy to achieve that vision. To unleash the potential of clean energy, investing in power grids is as important as investing in renewables developments, and collaboration is essential if smart grids are to maximize their potential to decarbonize energy systems.”