Jakarta. Just last week, the tourist haven Bali made international headlines for its island-wide blackout that disrupted traffic and digital transactions. The incident painted a grim picture of Bali’s energy supply, with some people calling on Bali to end its reliance on Java for power by, among others, taking advantage of the locally available renewable energy.

A senior government official recently floated a plan for Bali to harness Earth’s internal heat to generate electricity. Eniya Listiani Dewi, a director at the Energy Ministry, told reporters that about 50 percent of Bali’s electricity had come from Java, thus making it prone to power outages. 

“Geothermal use is something that we need to encourage. This includes boosting Bali’s self-reliance on electricity. We have warned Bali because over half of its power mainly came from here [Java],” Eniya said in Jakarta.

She added: “This is an opportunity for Bali to have its own geothermal power plant. Bali’s geothermal energy currently concentrates in the Bedugul area.”

Eniya was alluding to the project run by contractor Bali Energy Limited and Pertamina Geothermal Energy, a sub-subsidiary of the state-owned oil company. However, the geothermal project had faced decades-long hurdles as local religious leaders said Bedugul was a sacred site. There were also protests over the environmental damage of the geothermal plant. Bali Energy Limited wrote on its official website that it had secured the Energy Ministry’s approval in 2021 to proceed with the construction. The Bedugul geothermal project is set to generate up to 175 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

The Jakarta Globe recently spoke with Marlistya Citraningrum, a senior analyst at the energy think-tank IESR, on the potential for Bali to embrace geothermal power or even other forms of renewables. Citra, as she is usually called, stated that Bali needed to bolster its energy supply as its tourism industry grew. However, Bali should try looking at other sources of renewable energy aside from geothermal due to the aforementioned social concerns, according to Citra.

IESR’s estimates showed that sunny Bali boasted a solar power potential of up to 26 gigawatts (GW). It can also generate 445 MW of electricity from wind and 256 MW of micro-hydro power. Bali holds 15 MW of bioenergy potential. Of all these options, solar power could be an optimum choice.

“Because we can build solar plants fast. They are also quite flexible -- [solar plants] can be mounted on the ground. There are also rooftop solar panels, and we can even install floating solar projects,” Citra told the Globe.

She revealed that rooftop solar panels could act as what she called a “virtual power plant”. The energy that it generates can be transferred to PLN’s network for additional supply. This way, consumers -- be it household or commercial users -- can also act as producers.

The government-run PLN is currently the country’s sole provider of electricity. During the incident, PLN blamed the blackout on the disruptions in the subsea cables that allow the coal-reliant Java to supply power to Bali. The recent major power outage took place last Friday at 4 p.m. local time and lasted for about 12 hours. The blackout affected about 1.8 million PLN customers. Even days after the blackout, Bali still had rolling power disruptions.

The accommodation, food, and beverage sector -- which includes hotels and restaurants -- made up 21.23 percent of Bali’s economy in Q1 2025. The sector also saw 7.47 percent growth year on year, official statistics showed. Bali has attracted almost 1.5 million foreign tourists in January-March.