Locally produced green hydrogen is the cheapest way to fuel cars in Indonesia, says state-owned power monopoly
Claim comes as PLN opens country’s first H2 refuelling station in Jakarta
Indonesia’s state-owned power giant PLN has said that locally produced green hydrogen is the cheapest transport fuel in the country — with a lower per-km cost than electrons for battery electric vehicles (BEVs), while being almost five times cheaper than standard gasoline.
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Sign up nowThe claim was made by PLN vice-president Darmawan Prasodjo as he inaugurated the country’s first hydrogen refuelling station, in Jakarta.
Darmawan said that when using green hydrogen produced locally from existing rooftop solar or at PLN’s Kamonjang geothermal power plant, roughly 200km away, it would only cost 270 rupiah ($0.018) per km to run a fuel-cell car. This compares to 350-400 rupiah per km for a battery electric car, and 1,300 rupiah/km for a gasoline car, he added. Diesel is even more expensive, Hydrogen Insight understands.
The gasoline — branded as BBM in Indonesia — is much more expensive because it is mostly imported, while the H2 is produced locally using existing power production, Darmawan added.
But that does not explain why it would be cheaper to use hydrogen made from local electricity, rather than using that power directly in a battery — unless the H2 is heavily discounted.
For every 100kWh of electricity generated, roughly 77kWh would end up being used to power a BEV’s wheels — but for H2 cars, this figure would only be 30%, due to the energy lost when producing hydrogen and then converting it back to electricity inside the vehicle using a fuel cell.
The new refuelling station is a pilot project that is not open to the public, with PLN aiming to explore the technical, operational and commercial feasibility of using H2 as a fuel.
State-owned PLN generates the majority of the power in Indonesia and has a nationwide monopoly on electricity distribution.
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