Heaptalk, Jakarta – PT PLN (Persero) held a program for Startup Day Connext with the title “Spark The Future: PLN as The Epicentrum for Energy Startups”, in Jakarta, Tuesday (12/12).
This program was aimed to strengthen the objective of PLN to become the local energy startup epicentrum and Beyond kWh (business outside of electricity), and to succeed Indonesia’s agenda to achieve the Net Zero Emissions (NZE) target in 2060.
Deputy Minister of Communications and Information, Nezar patria said, the government has been given support in order to create a virtuous ecosystem for the growth of startups in Indonesia. This becomes important as the total of Indonesian startups is currently the 6th largest in the world and 2nd in Southeast Asia. Moreover, Indonesia has the most potential country with a high rate of internet users, a promising competitive index and strong economic growth.
“As one of the partners in growing the startup ecosystem, Kemenkominfo gave full support to the initiatives carried out by PLN to encourage startups develop the technology innovations. I think PLN’s decision is strategic enough for the digital landscape,” said Nezar.
Deputy for Human Resources, Technology and Information, Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) Tedi Bharata stated, a healthy ecosystem for startup is necessary to be built to achieve the vision of Golden Indonesia 2045. On this matter, the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) has done transformations by opening doors for startups to collaborate with SOE.
“We provide opportunities for innovation and technology as a part of the important transformation of SOE. These ideas need to be supported by management, we notice there is a CEO and director attending, which proves that PLN is truly welcoming to all startups that have innovative ideas so that the company would become more agile,” he uttered.
The CEO of PLN Darmawan Prasodjo delivered, the money circulation in the PLN ecosystem reaches 600 trillion rupiah every year. He hopes that startups that join the program could become a part of the big ecosystem by establishing a productive and innovative partnership with PLN.
“Today’s agenda is how we could scale things up that have already existed in PLN. Ideas and innovations from fellow startups would become helpful for PLN while building national capacity, using national products without imported products, and opening employment opportunities,” said Darmawan.
In this program, PLN opened three collaborative important categories such as customer focus and smart ecosystem, alternative energy, and shared economic model. Those three categories aimed to explore various technological innovations for mitigating climate change through the use of renewable energy.
In 2024, PLN carried an active and strategic role as the startup energy epicentrum and beyond kWh by doing a series of initiatives. Started from building a startup community and beyond kWh, conducting exploration and communication with global energy startups, and continuing acceleration collaboration program and incubation with startup.
“It is hoped that by combining technological solutions from startup and the PLN asset power, network, and resources as well as from other private/government sectors, it would form a mutualistic symbiosis that leads to Indonesia’s advancement,” Darmawan continued.
PLN Group as the leader of energy transition this year has scouted potential collaboration with more than 30 startups. Recently, PLN has planned the program of Accelerated Renewable Energy Development as a way to achieve NZE 2060. PLN believes that this program will ensure economic growth significantly where startups in the energy sector could take advantage of this growth momentum.
At the moment, there is an established decacorn (market capitalization/USD 10 billion valuation) Indonesia based and numerous unicorn companies (market capitalization/USD 1 billion valuation) that still has potential to grow into a decacorn. However, there has yet to be a single company operating in the energy sector.
“We hope that this program could become an incubator that encourages the growth of upcoming unicorns that operate in the energy sector to support Accelerated Renewable Energy Development in Indonesia,” Darmawan concluded.
Translator: Prazna Alyfia Ghefira
