Indonesia old hydropower plants repair funding stays unset, KfW to study 25 stations before deciding loan amounts for 10

Indonesia old hydropower plants repair funding is not yet decided

Indonesia old hydropower plants repair funding does not exist yet, and will not until a hired consultant finishes studying which stations are worth saving. KfW, the German state development bank, opened a tender on 16 December 2025 for a consultant to study 25 hydropower plants owned by PLN, Indonesia state electricity utility, and its subsidiaries PLN Indonesia Power and PLN Nusantara Power. Every plant on the list has run for 40 years or longer, and some have operated for more than 100 years. A hydropower plant makes electricity by moving flowing water through turbines, and each of the 25 can produce between 1 and 68 megawatts, a megawatt being 1 million watts of power. The consultant will run a lighter, preliminary study across all 25 plants, then a full technical, economic and financial study on whichever 10 look most worth saving, aiming to add another 30 years of service to each plant. KfW has stated plainly that it will not decide how much to lend for the rehabilitation itself until those 10 feasibility studies, which determine what work each plant needs, are complete. No dollar or euro figure exists yet for the rehabilitation program itself, only a requirement that the winning consultant carry at least 3.5 million euros in annual turnover.

The 25 plants sit mostly on Java

Most of the 25 plants sit on Java, the most populated of Indonesia many islands. PLN list places 19 plants on Java, 3 on Sumatra, 2 on Sulawesi and 1 on Kalimantan, the tender notice states. Bidders have until 28 January 2026 to prequalify for the work.

Hydropower supplies a small share of Indonesia electricity

Indonesia had 6,570 megawatts of installed conventional hydropower capacity in 2024, and no installed pumped storage capacity, the International Hydropower Association states. Pumped storage stores electricity by pumping water uphill and releasing it through turbines later, when demand is high. Generation data from the Energy Institute Statistical Review of World Energy, published through Our World in Data, puts Indonesia hydropower output at 27.29 terawatt hours in 2024, a terawatt hour equal to 1 billion kilowatt hours, against 371.54 terawatt hours of total electricity generation that year. Dividing those 2 figures gives hydropower a 7.35% share of everything Indonesia generated in 2024.

Output moved up and down from 2020 to 2024 rather than trending steadily. Indonesia electricity plan for 2025 to 2034, the RUPTL, targets raising renewable energy from 12% to 35% of the national energy mix, including 16 more gigawatts of hydropower capacity, split into 11.7 gigawatts of conventional hydropower and 4.3 gigawatts of pumped storage, a gigawatt equal to 1,000 megawatts. That new capacity target sits apart from the rehabilitation tender, which is about keeping existing plants running rather than building new ones.

A far larger financing package surrounds this small program

The rehabilitation tender is a narrow piece next to Indonesia other international financing. The Just Energy Transition Partnership, a group of international public and private funders, has committed 20 billion dollars to Indonesia power sector transition, split into 10 billion dollars of public international funding meant to draw in 10 billion dollars of private financing. Separately, World Bank funded rural electrification projects have reached over 2 million people in remote parts of Indonesia with new or improved electricity, as Indonesia economy grew 5% in the first half of 2025. Against that scale, the hydropower rehabilitation program remains unpriced, waiting on 10 feasibility studies still to begin.