President Prabowo’s 100 GW solar PV ambition marks one of the most significant leaps in Indonesia’s energy transition history. Of this total target, 80 GW is planned to be developed through the Village Merah Putih Cooperative (Koperasi Desa Merah Putih / KDMP), based on the assumption of installing 1 MW of solar PV in each of Indonesia’s 80,000 villages. This program is expected to become the backbone of energy self-sufficiency—expanding access to affordable electricity, reducing operational costs for rural enterprises, and boosting productivity across agriculture, fisheries, and micro, small, and medium enterprises through clean and low-cost solar energy.
However, the scale of this ambition faces fundamental challenges. The construction cost of a 1 MW solar PV plant remains around USD 900,000 (IDR 14.6 billion), far beyond the fiscal capacity of most villages. Meanwhile, the KDMP financing mechanism only provides a loan ceiling of around IDR 3 billion, and without clear PPAs or revenue models, banks are unlikely to consider these projects bankable. Additionally, lessons from hundreds of communal solar PV systems and the Patriot Energi program show that the greatest risks are not technological but institutional: governance issues, poor maintenance, and the absence of reserve funds have caused many systems to fail when batteries reach the end of their lifespan (typically 3–7 years), compounded by limited technical management capacity at the village level.
Therefore, developing village-scale solar PV under KDMP requires a redesigned project model. This analysis highlights that the program’s success hinges on four key pillars: professionalized operations such as Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS), project bundling to attract financing, the establishment of a national O&M reserve fund, and standardized village electricity tariffs and PPAs. With such an approach, the 100 GW solar PV program can not only be realized, but also position Indonesia as the largest community-based solar energy leader in Southeast Asia.
