Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said on Wednesday that the country requires 683 million US dollars to construct solar cell power generators with total capacity of 180 Mega Watt (MW) by 2013.
Darwin said that the plan was aimed at intensifying the use of renewable energy in anticipation of the diminishing production of national oil to fuel the regular power plants.
"Facing such a situation, we enlarge the proportion and speed up the construction of solar cell and wind power generators," the minister said in Jakarta.
According to the minister, despite the huge availability of sunshine-exposed areas across the country, Indonesia only operates solar cell power generators at a total capacity of 13 MW at the moment.
He said that the state-run power firm PLN only contributes 2 MW to the capacity. He added that government plans to construct solar cell power generators in 100 islands across the country at capacities of 10 to 20 MW.
Darwin said PLN has set a target to build 1,000 solar cell power generators by 2015.