Indonesian Battery Manufacturing Prospect for E-Mobility Ecosystem

Indonesia should fulfill 30% of the National Energy Mix target by 2025 with Renewable Energy, according to Presidential Decree No. 79/2014 about National Energy Policy. One of the important components for renewable energy progress is a battery. Converting renewable resources to electricity without energy storage is unsustainable. That is why the existence of batteries can’t be split out with the development of renewable energies. For further, the battery also becomes the key to achieve Paris Agreement and support UN Sustainable Development Goals.

From a global perspective, the battery has a high demand for international mobility systems. Let’s take a look at the Lithium battery. It has a great market for transportation and electric grid services. The same condition also emerges in Indonesia, energy storage for EVs (Electric Vehicles) is rapidly increasing. Also, Indonesian government already released the Presidential Decree No. 79/2019 about BEV (Battery Electric Vehicle) acceleration. For shaping this issue, New Energy Nexus Indonesia conducted Connex Webinar on Thursday, 8 April 2021. The topic is Indonesia’s Potential in Electric Vehicles: A Battery Manufacturing Perspective. As claimed by Prof. Dr. rer nat Evvy Kartini (founder of National Battery Research Institute and president of MRS-INA) stated that battery will be the most valuable component in Electric Vehicles. It represents 35% of manufacturing cost. Also 31% part of battery anatomy is cathode material that consists of nickel. The most potential battery model is NMC 811 with nickel rich. Because nickel material has the highest energy capacity. In other words, nickel material becomes the next oil.

Those future predictions will take us to the new age of the clean energy industry. A country with the highest nickel resources will lead the battery manufacturing development. As stated by many book history, Indonesia has great natural resources over the centuries. According to an energy business report, Indonesia produces 800.0000 metrics tons of nickel in 2019. This is twice the amount of the second-largest nickel production in the world, the Philippines. Of course, this potency becomes the important modal for battery manufacturing prospects in Indonesia.