The Appaling Nescience of Dedieselization

 I've watched a webinar that were talking about Indonesia's future energy management. Mr Zulkilfi Zaini as a Director in PT. Perusahaan Listrik Negara (Persero). is one of panelist who gave a presentation about the renewable energy.

One word that intrigue my curiosity is dedieselization. The term dedieselization hasn’t been defined clearly in the dictionary, so it’s pretty hard to find its true meaning.

Dedieselization could have a meaning by replacing diesel engine to process the crops with electric engine, just like the farmers in Rengasdengklok have done several months ago. By dedieselization, they could reduce their operational costs of milling the rice [1]. By this scenario, we consider the utilization point of view.

How in electricity generating? We might use biodiesel as the fuel, but eventually, biodiesel isn’t 100% pure from vegetal-processed. They are a mixture of petroleum diesel with biodiesel [2]. So I hardly enough to approve biodiesel renewablilty.

The last possible definition that I have about dedieselization is to replace diesel-powered generator with renewable generator on its place. This is mean that in a place where used to be a diesel-generator placed or mounted, they’re no longer use the engine but replacing it with renewable resources. I don’t recommend to do this because we still need diesel as a backup source of electricity, in case the renewable face intermitenncy or contingency. We may connect the diesel in parallel to the system, and turn in on in times of emergency.

[1]            https://kabarsebelas.com/2020/02/14/pln-rengasdengklok-sosialisasikan-program-dediselisasi/ , 21 Oktober 2020 , 05.33

[2]            https://money.kompas.com/read/2019/07/08/051100726/lebih-murah-40-persen-biodiesel-b100-bisa-hemat-devisa-rp-26-triliun , 21 Oktober 2020, 05.44