Cirebon-1, an 11-year-old coal power station in West Java, is set to close early, sparing the planet millions of tons of carbon dioxide and turning itself into a model for future early coal retirements.
Photographer: Muhammad Fadli/BloombergClosing Coal Plants Proves a Hard Sell for Big Global Banks
For the world to avert disastrous planetary warming, middle-income economies like Indonesia need substantial support from wealthy nations to clean up power generation.
A midsized, 11-year-old coal power station in West Java is an unlikely bellwether for global climate finance.
Cirebon-1 helps keep the lights on and factories whirring in the port city it’s named after, a few hours’ drive east of Jakarta. Like much of the coal fleet that generates some 60% of Indonesia’s electricity, it’s young, built with the help of Korean and Japanese capital during the coal boom of the 2000s and 2010s. Now it is set to close early, sparing the planet millions of tons of carbon dioxide — and becoming a beacon for the energy transition.