Indonesia’s clean energy transition requires a significant boost. Despite a target of 23% renewables in the energy mix by 2025, the country achieved only around 13% in 2023. To address the challenges and opportunities in accelerating this transition, New Energy Nexus Indonesia (NEX Indonesia) is leading efforts to establish Renewable Energy Centers of Excellence (CoE) through pilot projects in Semarang and Lombok.

The CoE pilot project’s first stage involved extensive pre-assessment through secondary research. This included gathering insights on best practices, renewable energy (RE) trends, current usage locally and globally, technologies, and challenges. Data collection examined factors such as the policy environment, technology infrastructure, ownership and governance models, socio-economic impacts, financing structures, cultural considerations, and gender aspects in each location. Additionally, this stage featured comprehensive stakeholder mapping.

Following desk research, site inspections were conducted to assess infrastructure, accessibility, safety, and environmental impacts, as well as to engage with local communities. These visits utilized a qualitative approach, including focus group discussions (FGDs) to refine objectives and identify potential challenges and opportunities within each community context.

The second stage supported the development of pilot projects aligned with the RE CoE’s vision, mission, objectives, action plans, budgets, human resources, and technological needs. This phase incorporated both quantitative and qualitative monitoring and evaluation methods to measure knowledge transfer, skill development, attitudinal shifts, and behavioral changes among participants, as well as to assess satisfaction levels and their willingness to engage with the agenda.