German Bank Partially Funds Geothermal Project in Indonesia

A German Development Bank, Kfw Entwicklungsbank, is to partially fund a geothermal project in Aceh in Sumatra.

Majority of the grant is to be utilized for a feasibility study and exploratory drillings. According to Kfw’s Project Manager, Thorsten Schneider, the area has a potential of 200 MW of unexploited geothermal energy. After the two year period of exploratory drillings the plan is to construct a 55 MW geothermal power plant within five years. This project is one of the initiatives carried out on behalf of the Indonesian-German Partnership on Climate Change, which would support the Government of Indonesia in forestry, geothermal energy and in urban climate safety.

Schneider revealed that KfW was also considering a loan for building the geothermal power plant. Indonesia with a geothermal reserve of 28000 MW has currently an installed capacity of less than 1200 MW. The Government has a target of 4000 MW of geothermal power plants by the year 2014.

KfW is one of Germany’s leading development banks and is a division of KfW Bankengruppe employing 400 staff. Currently, the bank is involved in 1800 projects all over the world.